


then it’s the bomb that will bring us together

by baunitchief (emeryazure)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Bombing, Established Relationship, F/F, FBI, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 03:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 51,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeryazure/pseuds/baunitchief
Summary: When the BAU are tasked with stopping a potential bomb threat at the University of Virginia, Emily and JJ find themselves caught in a situation they never imagined.





	1. the tick, tick, tick of time

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from the song "Ask" by The Smiths cause i love them and i have a headcanon that Prentiss does too. there is no real timeline on this other than post-Doyle and honestly, i live in a world where everyone is apart of the team so Morgan is present, Hotch is still unit chief and Tara is also briefly involved.
> 
> this kinda sucks, is unbeta-ed yet there might eventually be more parts.
> 
> i don't own anything but a string of words put together.

Jennifer Jareau is not entirely sure how it’s possible that she felt the bomb long before she heard it.

To think she was only twenty-five feet from the now infamous Robert E. Lee monument, the one that Emily Prentiss had landed herself next to with her eyes peeled on the crowd of people. The older woman felt a bit frantic as she knew they didn’t have enough eyes involved to canvass most of the people in the march on Emancipation Park but she’d be damned if they didn’t try. They had trained on what to look for however, having had a few days head start on catching the bastards that had sent the threatening letter.

She remembers how Reid had brought the file to Hotch himself, as Garcia had assigned him the case that was only meant to verify the letter’s validity and authenticity. For all intents and purposes the letter and the threat were thought to be very much real. They had profiled the possible unsubs were between the ages of twenty and thirty-five which even for the FBI felt a little like too broad of strokes. They figured the unsubs belonged to some sort of extremist group but which one was the key piece to the puzzle that was missing. They hadn’t identified which group they belonged to in the letter but the team all knew that if they succeeded in bombing the protest then it wouldn’t be long before they did. They couldn’t pin the race of the potential unsubs either however due to the intentional vagueness of the threat. 

Prentiss found herself irritated looking out on the angry crowds now. The scene was quickly escalating with races waring like she hadn’t witnessed first-hand before and it seemed like almost anyone and everyone could fit their profile at this point apart from the women.

Hotch had ordered the team to separate figuring that their best opportunity to catch these guys would be in pairs and Emily insisted on taking JJ along with her, not wanting to keep her wife too far from arm’s length. They had managed to get separated however as JJ had eyes on one particular guy who was wearing all black, sunglasses with a backpack who seemed relatively calm in the midst of the ensuing chaos of the crowd. She followed him several feet out away from her wife before getting caught up in the sea of protestors going wild in the crowd.

“Em, I’ve lost visual,” JJ reported through her mic that lined her FBI-issued black Kevlar vest as she struggled through the crowd. “It’s a mess out here.”

Emily’s voice was clearly frustrated as it came through her earpiece. JJ could practically see the growl that tore from her wife as she relayed, “I don’t have him either, just get back here and we’ll regr-”

That’s when JJ felt her life literally get rocked. She instinctively covers her ears upon feeling the blast, knowing that the sound-waves could be somewhat delayed but it was no use. She finds herself stumbling as smoke fills the area surrounding them. Then again, maybe thirty-seconds later, another bomb slightly farther away detonates as well. This one has her leaning forward on her knees, the crowds disperse fast from around her and leave her struggling to keep her stance and wits about her. 

Despite the fact that she is bleeding from one ear, JJ quickly retrieves the earpiece as she looks towards the monument where she had last seen her wife and where gray smoke was now currently pouring from, vaguely seeing that the base of the sculpture is lined with blood. Her knees feel weak, her hands shaking as she reaches and draws her weapon on instinct, desperate to make her way back.

“Em!” she all but yells into the mic, she knows from the ringing and dullness that she is suffering from some sort of hearing loss whether temporary or otherwise but she can hear enough. If her wife was to cut through that earpiece, she would know it. “Em, do you copy?!”

“JJ, are you alright?” it was undeniably her very male unit chief coming through the earpiece, not the comforting feminine voice she had hoped for but it settles her stomach if only for a few seconds.

“Fine, Prentiss and I got separated and she was still at the monument last I knew,” she says calmly, too calmly as she makes her way slowly through the disarray. “I don’t have a visual, a lot of smoke; I’m approaching the statue now.”

“JJ, it’s not safe to approach,” Hotch orders sternly through the earpiece. “There could be more bombs waiting to detonate nearby and we need to clear the area with the bomb squad.”

“Fuck that, Hotch,” JJ practically seethes through the mic. She wasn’t usually one to disobey orders but right now most things other than her wife were at the bottom of her priority list. “That’s my wife, I’m gonna clear the area and make sure she’s safe.”

She hears Hotch sighing in her ear, a little out of breath as he too was quickly making his way closer through the crowds. Knowing this was beyond his control, he relays, “Copy, Morgan is nearby and is on his way and JJ?”

“Sir?” JJ says through clenched teeth as she nears the scene. The smoke getting thicker, her eyes starting to water and the smell of burning firecrackers and flesh make their way through her nose. She has to lift her bicep to her mouth to keep the smoke from entering her lungs with her weapon still aimed at the ready.

“Be careful and don’t do anything Emily wouldn’t,” Hotch says with gravity, she could hear the depth there but chooses to ignore it. He is speaking to JJ, the mother and wife, and not necessarily SSA Jennifer Jareau, she knows but it doesn’t matter. She is all three at the moment and she will keep her family safe no matter the cost to herself.

JJ quickly makes her way towards the monument, starting slightly beyond where the blood trail begins and making a quick circle, her back to the crowd as she canvasses the monument for any lingering suspicious items. Morgan eventually meeting up with her but with no words spoken between them short of a nod of the head, they make their way counterclockwise around. Morgan’s back to JJ as his eyes wander closely to the surrounding people with his weapon drawn as well.

“We’re clear,” JJ only whispers as she stops short, stock still, her breath catching in her throat before stopping altogether. Her weapon drops to her side, her eyes wide as she takes in the scene of at least twenty wounded individuals spread out in one area around the base of the statue but there was only one victim that JJ’s eyes were drawn to. Morgan is quickly at her side, witnessing as well. The blood everywhere.

The dark brunette in skin-tight black jeans and crimson red blouse also in FBI Kevlar is literally crawling from person to person, wide-eyed herself, clearly in shock but still managing to help as much as possible as she bleeds from her hairline and more harrowing her right leg which is all but mangled. Her left leg also clearly wounded as chunks of metal debris have lodged in her calf and thigh. Emily is bleeding profusely, that much JJ knows as she sees the pools of red but she feels as if all the life in her own body has drained at the moment and she’s ashamed that it is Morgan who is at her side first.

“We need medics!” JJ yells into the mic as she finds her voice and her legs start moving as she disassociates herself slightly, going into full agent mode to take stock of each person’s injuries if only to keep herself sane for a few moments longer. She knows there are other people who need attending to and she has to trust Morgan for the time being. Somewhere in the back of her head though, she knows without a doubt that her wife is among the most critically injured. “We have at least twenty-or-so wounded and an agent down, twenty plus and an agent down!”

“Go help somebody else,” JJ heard her wife’s voice repeating over and over like a mantra to Morgan as her shaky hands were still checking pulses and doing whatever she could to prolong the lives of the victims in front of her. She heard Derek murmuring, ‘I’ve got you, Princess’ like it was his own mantra. “Help them, Derek, I’m fine, go help everyone else. I’m good.”

After dealing with a few of the worst injuries, JJ finally makes it to her wife’s side, panting and glossy eyed as she truly takes in the gruesome scene and seeing that Derek had made tourniquets out of part of his shirt that he had ripped. She sees that Emily is still conscious but paling and can’t exactly speak any longer, her mouth going to move several times before it clamps shut again, her wide eyes opening and closing rapidly. Her shaky hands grasping at her mangled right leg where bone was more than exposed, her right foot completely gone. Her terrified brown eyes absolutely boring into her wife’s deep blues with fear and trepidation.

“Baby, I need you to relax and stay calm,” JJ manages to utter, somehow finding a soothing tone through the panic and bile she feels rising in her throat at the sight before her. “You’re going to be okay, medics are on their way.”

“Jay,” she hears Emily whisper and JJ can’t hold it in anymore as a tear escapes her eye. But she offers her wife a meek smile as a hand strokes the raven-colored locks on her head, the only things she knows to do to comfort in anyway while feeling intensely useless.

“We need a chair over here!” she hears Morgan yell almost distantly although he is actually right next to her. She reigns in her emotion as the medics arrive and a wheelchair is quickly brought over to them. “We need to lift her, Jay, you got her?”

JJ can only feel herself nod and her adrenaline kicking into overdrive as she quickly helps Morgan pick up her wife, lifting her into the chair as they make their way towards the ambulance. Hotch, Rossi, Reid and Lewis are suddenly in front of her line of sight and she sees as they are all stunned still seeing the raven-headed woman in her current condition. As they make their way closer to the ambulance, JJ feels her arm suddenly pulled from her wife’s side by Hotch who quickly has her in his own tight grip.

“JJ, JJ, listen to me,” Hotch is saying calmly while cradling her head in his hands and into his shoulder. JJ knows she is absolutely covered in her wife’s blood, bleeding from her own ear and shaking profusely, unable to see past her tears as they stare into the expanse past her friends and teammates to the ambulance where her wife was taken. “You’re bleeding, I want you to get looked at and taken to the hospital.”

“Oh god, Hotch, I won’t just fucking leave her!” JJ screams as she tries to shove her unit chief away but he keeps his hands closely attached to his aggrieved agent. She quickly rushes towards the ambulance as she sees the medics applying tighter, more secure tourniquets to Emily’s ravaged leg and applying pressure to the wounds that they even possibly could with the severity of them. There is so much blood and suddenly JJ is dizzy as she spins out of Hotch’s arms and lurches to the side to vomit, the sickness making its way out violently but quickly.

“JJ, I’ve experienced this sort of injury before and there could be some inner-ear damage,” Hotch says calmly as he leans over with her, a supporting hand on her back. “You’re dizzy and vomiting and that’s not a good sign. There’s nothing you can do for Emily right now but make sure you’re safe and well, okay? You will be able to be with her at the hospital as soon as possible.”

JJ once again just nods as it’s all she’s capable of at the moment. Her exhaustion catching up with her, numbed, too tired to protest and quite literally worried to death as she feels as if she could pass out any second. Only just realizing her head is absolutely pounding, her pulse felt through every corner of her skull. She feels her legs wane, giving out almost instantaneously; Morgan is the one at her side now, catching her as she collapses in his arms. She briefly notices that he, too, is coated in her wife’s blood. It makes her sick and weak all over again.

She hears the nuanced shake in the baritone of his voice as he tries to soothe, “She’s gonna be okay, Jennifer, I promise you. You and I both know that Prentiss is a bad bitch who doesn't give up without a fight, you hear me? She’s got too much to live for now with you and the kids.”

“She’s survived before and she’ll survive again,” is all she hears, not even able to recognize the sound of the voice as everything starts to haze, before her eyes shut against her will and the world goes black.


	2. drives you mad in waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so since you guys have given this story a little love, i've decided to post another piece that i've written for it. not entirely crazy about all the filler for this chapter but it's necessary. the whole thing still feels like a very severe work-in-progress but i already have another chapter lying in draft waiting if you guys show enough love and want it. 
> 
> forgive me for any mistakes as i don't have anyone else editing, it's just me.

_The world was a hazy gray and JJ couldn’t move her body but she seemed to be moving closer to the scene however. As she drew closer, JJ knew what awaited her. Her wife covered in blood. She sees the brunette scream for her but voicelessly as the ringing in her ear intensifies. She tries to move but it’s a fruitless effort. The ringing growing louder as suddenly the world goes bright, surely another explosion…_

JJ wakes in a cold sweat from her nightmare. She sits upright to take in her surroundings, definitely a bed in a hospital’s Emergency Room. Suddenly she sees more than hears as the ringing is continuous, the other blonde woman with glasses next to her has a hold of her hand and shoulder and JJ has to take a few deep breaths to calm herself down.

“Oh, JJ, honey,” she hears the mellowed coos of her friend but JJ doesn’t have time for that right now.

“Em,” she murmurs, breathlessly. “Where’s Emily? I need to be with her.”

Penelope Garcia sighs and shuts her eyes and that’s when JJ notices the tears there, knowing too well that they were caused by the brunette agent’s condition. JJ’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no, honey, she’s okay, I think,” she says hurriedly, fumbling over her own tongue. “Well, she’s in surgery and that’s really all I know, they took her up almost as soon as she got here.”

“And how long ago was that?” JJ asks shortly, her patience wearing thin with being in the dark here, especially when it concerned her wife.

“About forty-five minutes to an hour ago,” Garcia relays the information but her concern is laced all over her face, from the slight wrinkles in her forehead to her furrowed eyebrows, down to the short breaths releasing from her nose and her mouth moving nonstop. “You’ve been out nearly as long but the doctor said that you would be fine, just was keeping you here until you woke up.”

JJ shakes her head slightly to clear her thoughts, trying to remember all that had transpired exactly but coming up blank after being caught by Morgan earlier that day. She notices Garcia pressing a button that lies on the bed. She takes in her surroundings a little more. The drawn curtain tells that she’s in the more populated beds of the emergency ward. She faintly hears the bustling of what she assumes to be a very busy hospital but the more she strains to hear the worse the pain and ringing. She winces slightly, covering her once injured left ear.

She realizes that the button Penelope hit had alerted the nurses’ desk, as it was only a few minutes before a short, friendly looking African American nurse is pulling the curtain back. “Well, look who finally decided to join us,” the nurse sings. “How’s that ear feeling, agent?”

“It could be better, I guess,” JJ merely grumbles. “But it’s fine, when can I get out of here?”

The nurse lifts her eyebrow in slight amusement, clearly not entirely aware of the gravity of the situation that all of the agents were involved in. They had the news running rampant all over the hospital. She knew what had happened but she was an ER nurse, she was used to the worst but this was grim. Of course, she had witnessed the myriad of victims coming through the door. Many of them nameless and faceless but she had recognized the FBI Kevlar on a few of them.

“Got somewhere else to be?” she asks lightly, a joking bedside manner clearly her strong suit but JJ could and would have none of it at the moment.

“Look, my wife came in earlier, Emily Prentiss,” JJ nearly croaks, stumbling and stuttering as the gruesome images flash before her once again. “She’s an FBI agent as well, she was injured in the blast and had-had, her leg was…”

“Oh, yes ma’am,” the nurse nods, suddenly dawning on her who the blonde agent was referring to. The dark-haired agent had been among the worst of the victims that she’d witnessed. “She came through here earlier and we were able to stabilize her before taking her into surgery. I’m sure she’s just fine.”

JJ took a deep breath that she wasn’t even aware she was holding and nodded blindly, “I need to be with her so when can I…?”

“I’m sorry, Agent Jareau but it’s gonna be a bit longer,” the nurse shared with sympathy in her eyes. “The doctor’s gonna come by and let you know what’s going on with your ear and then we can work on getting you released, okay?”

“Right, yeah, of course,” JJ scoffed, slightly irritated at the fact that she was being held here when her wife could literally be fighting for her life.

“I’ll make you a deal though,” the nurse said with a slight smirk. “I’ll give your doctor a call and explain the situation and see if we can’t expedite this a little, seeing as we were mostly just waiting for you to wake up but no promises, okay? It’s a little hectic around here right now as you can imagine.”

JJ feels relief washing over her as the tears seemed to crystalize over her blue irises at the woman’s kindness and a genuine smile graces her lips for the first time since before that bomb went off. “Yes, yes,” says the blonde agent with a nod. “Of course, thank you, ma’am.”

“No, I should be thanking you, agent,” the nurse offers with a kind smile. “Thank you for all you and your wife do for our country. Just rest and hopefully the doctor will be by soon.”

She hears Garcia’s drawn out, “Aww, she was nice!” But nothing is truly registering at the moment.

Despite her friend’s momentary glee, JJ’s demeanor goes serious while her eyes remain unseeing thinking about the state that she had last seen Emily. It was a sight she had hoped to never behold and one she never wanted to again. She follows her thoughts deeper and darker still, how the bone of her wife’s shin had protruded from her body as if a foreign object with no foot connected to it. She wonders where her foot had ended up. “Oh, God…”

“JJ, my sweets, are you okay?” Garcia says, studying her distraught friend, seeing the blonde’s hands go over her face in almost disgust. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

She honestly can’t answer for a moment until she snaps out of the murky waters of her mind, “Pen… her leg… her foot was completely gone… She’s not gonna be able to-”

“No, no, we’re not gonna do that to ourselves, Jayje,” Garcia shakes her head, determined to remain ignorant until she knew otherwise. “She’s going to be absolutely fine, no matter what happens.”

“I can’t stop seeing it, the last time I saw her,” JJ says, once again lost in her thoughts. Her head had been downcast but suddenly it snaps up in a realization. “Wait, where are the guys? Do they have a suspect or a lead?”

Penelope shakes her head once again, “They’re still at the scene finding out anything they can and they’re chasing down everything to catch these assholes that did this to our Emily!”

“What about the guy that I was pursuing, is there any way to find out more about him?” JJ asks but she’s afraid she already knows the answer. “Were there any cameras at all?”

“No, none,” Garcia shakes her head in the negative again. “There was one camera setup on the building behind the statue but there’s really no clear view of the bombing.”

“But there had to be people filming this,” JJ relents, feeling the fire return to her veins as she thinks about the scene again in more vivid detail. “Sure, it was utter chaos but someone had to catch something because that event wasn’t just some fluke, it was orchestrated and someone would have to have that footage.”

“Honestly, as soon as I heard what happened I came straight here to be with you guys,” Garcia said, suddenly realizing herself that she hadn’t been as tuned in as she should have been. “B-team has been helping out at the scene since we’re down you and Em but I don’t know if they’ve gotten that far… I’ll call Hotch and have Kevin see what he can scrounge off of social media.”

JJ sighed, finally feeling like she can relax if only slightly due to the fact that she could actually help and wasn’t just feeling like dead weight, “Thanks, Penelope, you’re a great friend.”

“Well, you’re the great mind here, Prentiss,” Penelope quips at the blonde as she pulls out her phone and stands to make her phone call. “You’re the one calling these shots.”

“No, I just meant in general,” JJ said with a shake of her head. “For coming and being here with me cause I just don’t- I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Don’t even mention it, sunshine,” Garcia smiles tearfully and grips JJ’s hand. “Everything’s gonna work out just fine and you’ll be with your sweetheart soon enough, I’ll be right back.”

With that, Garcia drops the agent’s hand and steps out of the room. Left with her own thoughts, JJ feels like she could drown. She’s never been one for worse-case-scenarios, well, that’s not entirely true with her job. But she’s always tried to be one to see the positive in every situation, no matter how dire.

Her thoughts run to the night before, it seemed like a lifetime ago now. She and Emily had arrived home late and Will had been gracious enough to pick the boys up from school, Rosalyn from the FBI daycare center and stayed with them.

_“Thanks for staying with them, Will,” JJ said, taking her dark-haired infant daughter from her ex-husband and landing a kiss to his cheek._

_He smiles at the blonde who was equal to his height, his heart tugging a little as he wistfully gazed at the mother of his sons now taking care of her little girl. JJ knew that look. It was the look he always held when they were together. It was regret and it was sorrow but JJ couldn’t feed into those emotions of his anymore. She made her choice and she was happier for it._

_“It was no problem, Jay,” Will graced with a smile. “They’re my boys too and Roz here is just a doll besides I’m due for a little personal time at work. I guess I been going pretty hard since the divorce.”_

_Emily, who had been silent up until now, looks over from her position on the couch. She sighs, her hand going to her forehead, rubbing it in irritation. At her sigh, JJ had glanced over at her wife, knowing all too well her thought process on the matter. It had been three years since the divorce and Will still hadn’t entirely moved on, he had thrown himself into work but otherwise, his free time was spent with the boys, and even JJ, Roz and Emily on occasion. It had grated on Emily a little, just how much he was present but there was no point in fighting cause he was the father of the boys._

_With this, Emily stood up and walked over to where her wife, daughter and Will stood near the door, “Look, Will, we really appreciate it but we’re pretty tired and worn out and have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and you’ll have the kids to yourself.”_

_“Right, oh course,” he drew in his southern accent that JJ knew irritated her wife if she was too tired. “Well, y’all get some rest now and I’ll be by early in the morning.”_

_“Sounds great, Will,” JJ says with a smile as she opens the door and waves the man out. “We’ll see you tomorrow and thanks again.”_

_“Anytime,” he dips his head in a slight bow and walks away._

_JJ closes the door and Emily is quickly storming away towards the office off the kitchen. She shoots a confused look towards her wife’s back as she retreats but is quickly following her._

_“Hey, what’s your problem?” JJ asks quietly due to her sleeping daughter as she rounds the corner of the door and enters the office. Emily has set herself at the desk now, her elbows leaning against the myriad of papers spread across it with her head in her hands._

_“Nothing, I’m exhausted,” Emily says shortly as she starts to scrounge around for the case file she had left there earlier that day._

_JJ watches her wife with scrutiny in her eyes, she can see that her irritation is well beyond that of fatigue as it hadn’t been so prominent since before they walked in on Will cradling their daughter and rocking her to sleep. “This is about Will,” JJ stated more than she asked._

_“We’re not doing this tonight,” Emily said, her head snapping up at the blonde agent. Her eyes only softening at the sight of the woman she loved and her daughter. “Why don’t you put Roz to bed and then we’ll talk.”_

_The younger woman scoffed at the thought, “Will we, though? It’s always this every time Will is around, you get mad and I have to play the mediator and then you just shut down about it.”_

_“JJ, I’m not having this conversation while our daughter is in your arms, alright?” Emily nearly grits her teeth to keep her anger at bay. This had been brewing for a while, the way Will always lingered and found excuses to be around JJ and it never stopped._

_“Okay but I’m coming right back down and we’re going to talk about this, Em,” JJ says just as firmly and Emily knew she was serious. “I’m not gonna let you shut this conversation down for once, got me?”_

Her troubled thoughts are interrupted however as a young male doctor in his thirties pops his head around the curtain, “Agent Jareau, how are we feeling, any lightheadedness?”

“Uh, not so much anymore,” JJ says with a shake of her head. “Just still a little ringing in my ear.”

“Well, that’s to be expected as you have a ruptured eardrum but the tear was small and it caused the bleeding,” the young doctor relays the information with a nice practiced smile. “You seemed to have been suffering from a bit of a mild form of tinnitus that caused you to pass out at the scene but we seemed to have found no head injuries so you’re in the clear there.”

“So when will I be cleared to get out of this bed?” JJ asks suddenly, not feeling like dealing with this guy’s bedside manner for too long. “If there’s no reason to keep me here then I really need go see-”

“Ah, yes, Nurse Johnson told me that your wife is currently in surgery due to the injuries she sustained in the blast, is that correct?” he inquires tentatively.

“Yes, Emily Prentiss, she came in with injuries to her legs but I just really need to get up so I can figure out what’s going on as soon as possible,” JJ said shortly.

“You say her name was Prentiss?” the doctor asks with a quirked eyebrow. JJ just nodded. “She was among the more seriously injured that came in but I’m sure she’s doing just fine.”

“You saw her? Did you treat her?” JJ can’t help but ask, quickly growing impatient.

“I didn’t treat her myself, no, but I know she was stable when she went up for surgery,” his grim smile seems to tell JJ that he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming.

“Do you know how bad it was?” she looks up at him, meekly, more afraid of the answer than not.

“I think it’s best to let the surgeon answer your questions once the surgery is complete,” he says seriously. “But what I can tell you is that your ear should heal on its own in the next couple of weeks as everyone is different, no flying or high pressure areas but you should be cleared for a light workload.”

“I don’t think the FBI knows that the words, ‘light’ and ‘workload’ can even go together in a sentence,” JJ quips with a roll of her eyes.

“I understand your job demands a lot of you but let’s just keep it at paperwork for now,” he suggests.

“I doubt I’ll even be going back to work with Em… the way she was the last time I saw her,” JJ said as her blue eyes fall to her hands in her lap and the thin wedding band on her left ring finger that she was currently fidgeting with.

The doctor just nods his head and JJ knows he has more information than he was sharing and it ticks her off. She’s a profiler for god’s sake and sometimes it’s a curse knowing when someone’s lying. “Well, we’ll get the paperwork started so you can head up to the OR; just give us about a half an hour.”

This leaves JJ sighing in frustration, just needing to know what exactly was happening with her wife.


	3. to hear what you don't want to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm realizing that i abuse the hell out of my favorite characters in this fic (especially Emily) and everyone is out here writing nice, cute little christmas pieces and here i am bringing the darkness. what can i say? it's how i roll. i feel like this chapter is a huge improvement from the last and the next one is even better tbh so stay tuned.
> 
> i don't own anything, of course (Rosalyn Prentiss is my own creation though). once again, no editing was done other than my own so go easy.
> 
> so merry christmas and here's some hella angst!

And a little over half-an-hour it was before JJ and Garcia make their way through the endless loops of the hospital, finding the elevator and weaving through wards before they finally land in the waiting room for surgery. JJ is quick to make it to the desk as Garcia, now with her laptop in-tow, is setting up to help out Kevin in the investigation.

“Hi, my name is Jennifer Jareau-Prentiss, my wife Emily Prentiss was brought up for surgery about an hour-and-a-half ago now,” JJ tells the lady seated at the desk as she stares at the computer before her, searching for the information on the patient.

“Uh, yes, it seems she’s still in surgery but if you’ll take a seat then the surgeon will be with you as soon as they can,” the nurse relays with a smile and JJ feels like slapping it off her face but she resists. Another brick wall has her waiting.

“Thank you,” she says ruefully with her own fake smile plastered there as she walks back to the waiting area chairs. She takes a seat next to Penelope, neither one really paying much attention to the other. JJ crosses her arms over her chest as she sits, her leg bouncing and eyes staring off distantly while Penelope is busy typing away but not at her usually lightning fast speed.

“Ugh, this hospital’s WiFi sucks!” Penelope groans with displeasure as she suddenly notices her friend’s faraway look again, the same she’s been wearing all afternoon. “Hey, sunshine, what did you find out?”

“Nothing, she’s still in surgery,” JJ says lifelessly with a shrug until a thought dawns on her. “Shit, how did I not even think about the kids? I know Will said he would watch them but we didn’t exactly anticipate this.”

Penelope watches as JJ reaches in her back pocket and pulls out her phone, fumbling slightly in her sudden frenzy and then ready to dial. Garcia quickly smacks the phone down and back into the blonde agent’s lap.

“Oh no, you don’t,” says the tech analyst. “I took the liberty of calling Will for you and he’s currently off duty for the weekend so your two blonde-haired, blue-eyed boys and your raven-headed little princess are doing just fine with him but he wants us to keep him updated on what’s happening with Em.”

“God, how did we ever get so lucky to have such an amazing family?” JJ asks with a sigh, more rhetorically than not. Shaking her head in disbelief at her ex-husband and his nearly immediate acceptance when she told him about Emily and her feelings for her, how she wanted a divorce to be with her. He almost never bated an eye really, it had been a strange and awkward transition at first but it was fine.

He had been there and stood by her when the two women had gotten married, when JJ decided to have Emily’s eggs implanted and have their daughter. It was all so odd how everything had fallen together. She was just beyond belief that she ever deserved such a thing, such happiness.

“Well, I’m a firm believer that you reap what you sow,” Garcia says with a smile, reaching over and gripping her friend’s hand. “Besides anyone with two eyes could see how you and Em are like the definition of the meant-to-be, one-true-love, opposites attract fairytale.”

“Thanks, Garcia,” JJ offers a slight, disbelieving laugh as she rolls her eyes at her friend’s resolution. She shakes her head at the turn of her thoughts. “So what did Emily ever do to deserve everything that’s happened to her, first Doyle and now this?”

“I really don’t know, sugarplum,” Garcia says with a shake of her head now as well. “All I know is that sometimes the cosmos is very, very cruel to the kind.”

JJ went silent at her friend’s words, lost in thought once again to the previous night’s events and the argument that had spun out of control before she even realized it.

_The blonde agent walked back down the stairs and purposely strode to the office where she knew her wife still resided. Her level of annoyance at the thought of her wife being angry over Will was palpable as she entered through the open door, crossed her arms and leaned against the frame. She stared the dark-haired woman down who was busy shuffling through a case file, pen in hand. She knew the older woman had sensed her presence but was ignoring her. She huffed in exasperation._

_“So we were gonna talk about this,” JJ demanded temperedly._

_Emily finally looked up from the file to her wife, “There’s nothing to talk about, Jay, so just go to bed.”_

_JJ laughed humorlessly at the thought, “No, you don’t just get to placate me like there’s no issue here.”_

_“I’m not,” Emily says shortly._

_“Then why the hell have you been this way towards Will since we had Rosalyn?” JJ said, then a thought strikes her. “Wait, are you jealous of Will and our daughter?”_

_Emily looks up from under her brow, one arched in clear offense. She throws the case file with vigor onto the desk and she breathes a little heavier as she asked, “Why the hell would I be jealous of him?”_

_“That’s what I’d like to know because that’s how you’re acting,” JJ threw with an accusatory tone in her voice that she just couldn’t keep at bay. “We both decided together that he would be Roz’s godfather cause we didn’t want the kids split up if, god forbid, anything ever happen to us.”_

_“We did decide that, yes,” Emily nods in agreeance, if not agitation. “But I didn’t think I was signing up for Will being here every waking moment that he’s off work.”_

_JJ sighs in frustration, her hands smoothing over her hair as she clears her thoughts, “He’s not here that often anymore and he was only here after we had her cause he was helping me with the boys while you were at work.”_

_Emily’s eyes go wide, JJ knew the minute the words slipped out of her mouth that they were the wrong ones and she regretted them immediately. “Oh, so it’s my fault that your ex-husband still pines for you like a little lost puppy looking for his master?”_

_“It doesn’t matter what Will is or isn’t trying to do because I am here, with you because I made that decision,” JJ said firmly, getting worked up while her hands were hammering home her point. “I made a decision because it’s with you who I am in love and want to spend the rest of my life, not him.”_

_“Honestly, you could’ve fooled me,” Emily spit in retort. “He’s here almost as much as when you two were married.”_

_“What? So you think I’m conducting some secret affair with my ex-husband who I left to be with you?” JJ asked, the absurdity of the question dripping in her tone. “That’s not what this is about, is it? Cause I know Will grates on your nerves but I also know you could never believe that.”_

_“No, I don’t think that you’re having an affair with Will,” Emily said calmly, her brown eyes lifting to meet her wife’s in a stare. JJ was confused by what exactly her wife was inferring then. Her arms go wide, asking the question that she can’t seem to voice. “Our daughter is not even a year old, Jen, do you really think it’s a good idea that both of us are in the field?”_

_"Oh my god,” JJ whispered in quiet disbelief, she should’ve known that this was the source of her wife’s unease. They had had a similar conversation when JJ first went back to work, even when she would just be dealing with paperwork. “We had this conversation already, Em and I am not going to be sidelined from a job that I’m very well qualified for just because I became a mother again.”_

_“JJ, I don’t want you out there with us on this case tomorrow,” Emily said seriously, her eyes big and wide and vulnerable now. JJ sees no walls that she’s used to dodging in arguments with her wife. “There are too many unpredictable variables to this one.”_

_JJ honestly couldn’t believe her ears, her wife’s honesty was brutal but it wasn’t fair. “There’s never certainty in our job, Em,” she relays what her wife already knew to be true. “This case is no different.”_

_“It is,” Emily nodded in confirmation. “We have essentially nothing on the people who sent that letter, we know the threat to be real and the profile… honestly the profile is bullshit, there’s nothing there as it’s merely bare bones, just an outline of what we’ve seen in past bombers.”_

_“I know that, Em and I can handle it,” JJ said seriously herself._

_“I’m not saying that you can’t but I am saying that you shouldn’t,” Emily suddenly looked down, shaking her head and struggling with the words she was trying to find. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow but I do know that something doesn’t feel right and I just- I can’t leave our kids just…”_

_The blonde was surprised to see the tears welling in her wife’s eyes as she trailed off, unable to finish the sentence sat on her tongue. JJ sees the pain and desperation there but she couldn’t give it up. “We’re not just leaving our kids, Em… We will be fine, just like we always are and I’m not letting you or the rest of the team deal with this by yourselves.”_

_“Jennifer, please!” Emily suddenly stands, her hand hitting the desk as anger overwhelmed her suddenly. “Please don’t do this, I cannot explain but I need you to stay here tomorrow.”_

_“No, Em, I won’t,” JJ said with finality. “This is my job too and I won’t just abandon my team.”_

It was at least another half-an-hour before they heard anything, JJ’s not really sure as she’d lost track of the time in her thoughts of the disagreement as she stared at the walls, the floor and tried her best to help Penelope develop any kind of new leads for the team. She noticed that the OR’s waiting area was more full than she had initially realized, crowded with families waiting to hear the best or worst news of their lives. She sat looking at each of their impatient, troubled faces that she’s sure her’s matched. She’d even spent time uselessly profiling each of them. But mostly, she paced, itching with her own unknowing.

She is seated with her eyes closed, her head rested back against the wall as a nurse came through the door, shouting over the commotion of the area, “Prentiss family! Prentiss!”

JJ had shot up faster than she ever had in her entire life, making her way quickly over to the nurse, feeling a little out of breath as her heart was suddenly racing, “I’m her wife.”

Then she is shuffling down the hallway and into an office area where she is kept waiting for longer than she thought humane in this situation. Her leg bouncing again with nervous energy and she starts the process of worrying all over again, her fingers going over her eyes and rubbing the tears relentlessly away.

They even allow Garcia to join her despite the fact that she isn’t technically family. Either that is a good thing or a bad thing. Either it isn’t as serious as she knew it to be or it was the kind of news that demanded a support system present. She knows instinctively which one it is.

“Mrs. Prentiss?” the female surgeon says as she enters through the door and shutting it behind her.

“Yes,” JJ says with a nod, normally she would correct anyone who didn't use her official title as Agent Jareau but it didn't matter right now. She is certainly more Mrs. Prentiss than an agent at the moment. She closes her eyes for a second to steady herself before opening them again. Garcia seated next to her, silently holding her hand.

“I’m Doctor Augusta,” the older red-headed woman says kindly. “Emily made it out of surgery just fine, your wife is alive.”

JJ lets out a sigh of relief, her shoulders slumping like a giant weight has been lifted off of her and Garcia lets out a quiet, “Thank the heavens!”

“So, Emily came in bleeding, as you know, with tourniquets on both legs and she was intubated right away and then brought up immediately to the operating room,” and then suddenly as Dr. Augusta is speaking, the ringing got louder and JJ is transported back to the scene of the bombing.

It takes a moment to refocus her eyes and be present to listen to just what the doctor was telling her about her wife’s condition. Garcia recognizes JJ struggling and squeezes her hand a little tighter, it seems to bring her back to heightened awareness again.

“Emily underwent a knee disarticulation amputation on her right leg and what that means is that we were forced to amputate at the joint of her knee,” the doctor relays the grim news. JJ’s azure eyes cloud with tears and go wide while Garcia’s jaw nearly hits the floor. “Most of the destruction had actually already been done by the bomb below the knee around her ankle and shin, and it was very obvious to all the surgeons involved that there was no way to salvage anything below the knee.”

It’s silent for the moment as the news sinks in. JJ and Garcia staring at this woman like another bomb had gone off in the room. Although the blonde agent had instinctively known what had probably needed to be done from witnessing the destruction, it didn’t make it any easier or less of a shock hearing it.

“We needed to get higher right at the knee to get clean skin, clean muscle, clean tissue,” the doctor continues. “The good news is we were able to save her left leg, the shrapnel cut just mere inches from the femoral artery in her thigh because if it had, we’d be having a very different conversation. But this increases the likelihood of your wife’s recovery time and being able to walk again sooner…”

As the doctor carries on, JJ disassociates altogether at the thought of losing her wife coming down to just mere inches. This was all too much to process but she remembers standing up, thanking the woman and shaking the surgeon’s hand. She remembers feeling more like a zombie than a human being as a nurse escorted them to Emily’s room and opened the door for them.

She stares for a moment, not quite able to move a limb towards the room quite yet. Taking in the sight through the glass was her wife, lying in the hospital bed in a gown, intubation tubes shoved down her throat and bobbing and weaving around the bedside to a monitor. Then she glances down her wife’s body a little further, maybe it was tunnel vision but she hasn’t brought herself to look there quite yet. When she does, she gasps lightly. She feels Garcia just as shocked still next to her.

“Oh, my god,” JJ says, staring at the remainder of her wife’s leg and she shakes her head, looking away. “I can’t, I don’t know if I can-”

“Yes, you can, JJ,” Garcia says firmly, turning to her best friend, taking ahold of her arms and staring her in the eyes. “Yes, you can because you’re the strongest person I know and because your wife is in there right now and she’s gonna be more confused and scared than she’s ever been in her entire life when she wakes up and god, is she ever gonna need you, Jay!”

JJ nods her head, she knows all this but right now, under heavy anesthesia, her wife is sleeping soundly, the nightmare not yet reaching her and the blonde knows she needs the time to process this. “Mere inches, Garcia, mere inches and my kids would be without their mother and I would have lost my- I’d be a widow.”

“Hey, no, no, no,” Garcia says frantically shaking her head. “What did I tell you? We’re not doing that, okay? She’s right there and she’s gonna be fine, she’s just gonna need our help to get through this.”

She realizes she’s been holding together relatively well up until this point. She hadn’t broken yet but at the tone and words of Garcia and a glance back at her wife’s state, she crumbles. A quiet sob releasing from her mouth as the tears fall with abandon and Penelope quickly scoops her up in her arms, cradling her gently. She cries even harder as a thought passes her head, “She’s not even gonna be able to chase Roz around once she starts walking, Pen.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Garcia coos comfortingly into JJ’s ear. “Prentiss will crawl on hands and knees if she has to for that little princess of yours! But she’s strong and she’ll be walking again before we know it because we all know she’s stubborn like that.”

JJ laughs the first full-hearted laugh since she can remember at the truth in the statement and pulls away from Garcia as her tears slow and she wipes them away, “Oh, god, I’m a wreck.”

“Well, I know a certain tall, dark lady who would still wreck you anyway,” Garcia says with a suggestive wink and a playful smile.

“Don’t even joke right now, Garcia,” JJ says with a humorous cut of her eyes, the smile still planted on her face until she looks back at her wife again, a little more assured. “What would I do without you?”

“Fall apart but luckily for you, I’m right here,” Penelope says jokingly. “But I think it’s probably for the best if you go this alone for now, talk to her and I’ll give you some time, just let me know if you need a break or want some company, okay?”

JJ nods undoubtedly and takes one step towards the hospital room, her wife and the unshakable feeling that her life is about to change irrevocably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if any of you have seen the film "Stronger" with Jake Gyllenhaal then you'll know that a certain section of dialogue in this chapter was ripped from it cause i honestly had no idea how to write a scene like that. there will be other small parts that are taken for inspiration from the film as it was the prompting source of this fic. but it is an original piece on it's own.


	4. in the silent deafness of the room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really enjoyed writing the last chapter and this one. the next couple will be moving the story forward a bit more.
> 
> just an fyi, i only post a new chapter when i have another one completed and ready to go so the next couple might take a little longer to post. patience is appreciated. thanks.
> 
> once again it's only edited through mine's eye.

The blonde agent walks into the room, her eyes instantly glazing with tears again as she gets an up-close look at all the damage done to her wife. The room is all but silent and yet still the ringing in her ears felt more prevalent than ever. She winces at the feeling. Her mind goes blank in the presence of the carnage that she sees wreaked upon her wife’s form.

The older woman’s face more pale than usual, her mouth slightly ajar with the intubation tube inserted there and JJ was shocked to see the little harm done to her face despite the intensity of the blast. There are cuts lining her eyebrow and hairline and what looked like slight bruising to her right cheekbone but honestly, these were minor compared to the horrors that JJ envisioned when the bomb had gone off.

She lets her eyes drift to the brunette’s legs again, covered by sheets and the sight was a little less of a shock than when she had first witnessed it from afar. The outline of the sheet however set the stark and severe reality of the situation for the blonde, all that had come and gone within a single second of the blast before her. Another tear makes its way down her cheek as she reaches a hand out, gentle and hesitant. She grasps lightly at her wife’s knee, all that remained and JJ lets loose tears she had been desperately trying to keep at bay in a show of strength.

Her head falls to the brunette’s stomach as the woman lay still unconscious and unknowing, seeming so entirely peaceful as the war waged in her partner. The images return with her blue eyes closed, the blackness and the haze of her tears. Blood, smoke and darkness had become her companions on this day. She stands back up straight, sniffling, sighing and shaking her head to be rid of it all.

She tentatively grips the top lining of the sheet. She takes another deep breath as she pulls it back, slowly revealing the true destruction that had been done. Her eyes landing on the intense bandaging of the older woman’s left thigh. _The mere inches_ , JJ remembers. She quickly tosses back the sheet and has to steady herself on the thick plastic rail lining the bed. She breathes deeper still, eyes closed.

She remembers waking up that morning to an empty bed, still angry from the words released the night prior and everything had felt so heavy. How naïve, JJ thinks that’s the story of her life somehow. They could have had no idea. Well, Emily could have. No, she did.

_JJ wakes as she had been tossing and turning for the last hour, the chill of the fall morning running deeper in her bones than was normal. She sighed and reached behind her to the right side of the bed where Emily usually resided. It was cold and empty. Her mind quickly catches her up on the night’s events where she had walked away from her wife angry, when she had slammed the door and huffed her way into bed and off to sleep without so much as a consideration for what the brunette had been saying._

_She didn’t regret it though as she had been right. Her job was hers alone and Emily might have the same title and years, almost a decade of seniority on her but that didn’t matter. JJ was damned good at her job and Hotch had never so much as questioned that once since she became a profiler so why should her wife? JJ gets that Emily worries for the sheer fact that they are married and have kids together but that honestly wasn’t an issue before JJ had gotten pregnant again and had their daughter. She wished it didn’t factor in so much now either but she knew it did._

_Suddenly the tapper of little feet came scurrying in, shoving the bedroom door wide open and JJ didn’t feel the heat of her anger anymore, maybe only a slight boiling of irritation. Henry and Michael barge in with their superhero pajamas, jumping on the bed and proclaiming, “Mom’s making pancakes" and "Dad’s coming over!”_

_JJ regardless can’t help but smile at their usage of the maternal name for Emily as it was a relatively new development for her sons. Henry in particular had a more difficult time but after Rosalyn’s arrival, he had finally found the sense of family that he felt had been lost with the divorce. Realizing how often he would get to see his dad still eased the pain of the separation._

_Her sons run out of the room as quickly as they came so she showered and dressed herself, knowing Em had probably been up for a while especially if she was making pancakes. JJ exited the bedroom, making her way across the hall to their daughter’s room in hopes that the little girl was still sleeping but she was no longer in the room either. It seemed her entire family had beaten her to the punch this morning._

_JJ made her way down the stairs, seeing the two boys now dressed themselves and playing with their toys on the living room floor. She heard clatter coming from the kitchen, sounding at first like dishes being done and then the distinct sound of the hollow of a plastic bowl and what sounded suspiciously like cheerios hitting the floor. She hated that she had to steel herself before entering the room._

_She rounded the corner tentatively and sees her wife scrambling to clean up the mess their nearly one year old daughter had made. Cheerios do indeed line the floor with Rosalyn in her high chair clapping her hands together innocently, JJ wanted to laugh but doesn’t. “You could’ve woken me up to help you, you know,” JJ said, approaching the island of the kitchen and leaning against it._

_Emily’s head whipped around to her wife; she sighed and stared before she continued to simply clean up the mess. This is how JJ knew her wife was still angry with her too. It seemed that a night’s rest and an offer of help were not going to soothe this over. “Yeah, well, maybe you should’ve set an alarm,” Emily quipped. “You knew when Will was coming over this morning.”_

_“Well, pardon me if I’m used to waking up to my wife getting out of bed instead of an empty one,” JJ crossed her arms defensively. Emily stood with the bowl of discarded cheerios. She walked over and tossed them in the trash before placing the bowl in the sink and going back to completing the dishes. “You slept in the office last night?”_

_“Yeah, must’ve dosed when I was going over the case,” Emily said noncommittally with a shrug that irritates the blonde. She then pointed to the counter that holds a stack of pancakes ready to be devoured. “There’s pancakes made, the boys haven‘t eaten yet and Will should be here any minute.”_

_Emily started to head towards the office again, sliding past JJ quickly but the blonde had faster reflexes, grabbing ahold of her wife’s arm before she could escape. “Emily, are we gonna talk about this?” JJ asked, genuine care and concern lacing her features and voice._

_“I thought when you walked away from our conversation last night that you made it pretty clear that we weren’t discussing that or anything else further,” Emily replied coldly, jerking her arm back away and continuing towards the office. JJ sighed._

_“Looks like it’s me and you, Roz,” JJ half-heartedly smiled over at her daughter when suddenly the doorbell rings. She groaned at the thought of dealing with Will this morning._

_Will had indeed arrived, they had started getting the boys fed when JJ received a message from Hotch telling her that they needed to come in a little earlier than expected to go over a few things with the bomb technicians that would be assisting them at the rally. Will assured her that the kids would be fine, that he’d get the boys to school and take care of Roz for the day. With a grateful smile, she sighed, shoved a pancake in her mouth and landed quick kisses to all three of her kids and they were off._

_Emily took the driver’s seat as they made their way to Quantico in an absurdly awkward silence and honestly, JJ can’t remember the last time that she couldn’t talk to her wife and she felt the pain in her chest that it caused. She bites the bullet._

_“Look, Em, I am sorry about last night,” JJ murmured before continuing. “I’m sorry for storming out but you also have no right to tell me whether I can do my job or not.”_

_“I know that, Jennifer, and I’m sorry too,” Emily said, her eyes dead ahead on the road. “But you weren’t listening to my side of the conversation either.”_

_JJ sighed, a little irritated at this notion, “No, I heard you insinuate that I shouldn’t do my job just because I have three kids at home.”_

_“We have three kids and I honestly just meant that maybe when it comes to situations like this then maybe one of us should either take the day or stay back with Garcia,” Emily offered with a shrug._

_“Oh, and like you would just volunteer to stay back on a case like this?” JJ asked sarcastically, knowing how her wife was when it came to work, committed, dedicated and she could even say damn near addicted. The hesitance she read on her wife’s face told her she’s right. “Exactly, it would be so incredibly selfish of me to stay behind while the team walks into an extremely dangerous situation like the one we face today, especially when Hotch and Morgan both have sons too.”_

_Emily sighed with frustration because in some ways, she knows her wife is right and she hates to admit it, she knows she’s never good at admitting it. She reached over the console and grabbed her wife’s hand that remained in her lap. JJ looked down at their intertwined fingers and then back at her wife wide-eyed in utter confusion, the move unexpected. They were in the middle of an argument but the move told JJ that the older woman conceded._

_“I’m scared, JJ,” Emily said so quietly, barely above a whisper. “I seriously don’t know what it is about this case but it’s got me… terrified.”_

_JJ saw the honesty and vulnerability on her wife’s face and it made her concerned. There were few times in life that Emily damn Prentiss would ever admit to weakness like this, to admitting she felt unlike the strong protector that she knew she so often was and could be. JJ could probably count on less than one hand the amount of times that it had happened but she understood where the fight had stemmed from. She really hadn’t let herself take in where Emily was coming from and now she regretted it._

_She places her right hand on top of Emily’s entwined with her left and squeezed in reassurance. “Em, it’ll be alright,” she said seriously, looking at the side of her wife’s face as she drove. “It’s no different than any other case that we’ve trained for.”_

_“Promise me that you’ll stay close when we get to the rally?” Emily seemed to request with all the weight in her universe, the exposure in her voice obvious to JJ. She’s not entirely sure if she wanted her to stay close so Emily could try and keep her safe or the other way around, it was more than likely both. “I’ll talk to Hotch because I really don’t want us separated on this one, alright?”_

_“Yeah, Em, of course,” something settled in the pit of JJ’s stomach as she nodded in agreement. Something of dread and daunt but she didn’t linger in the feeling. She just squeezed her wife’s hand tighter._

If JJ felt like she was treading water before then she’s completely drowning now. The sudden guilt submerging her thinking of the promise that she had made her wife that morning. It should’ve been her, she should’ve been right there next to her wife, protecting and defending her, keeping her safe. She never should have left her side to fruitlessly pursue that man.

She scoffs thinking about what Emily would say if she followed her down the rabbit hole of her thoughts. Really she doesn’t let herself think about it because right now, Emily can’t follow her anywhere. Emily who was lying in this goddamn hospital bed and JJ who was losing her mind in thoughts of things past, dwelling in what she knows she has no control over. Yet she couldn’t stop herself.

She knows she’s never been able to master the art of compartmentalizing quite like her wife but JJ sure is going to have to learn quickly, if all of this was to be taking over her thoughts the way they are, if this was the new normal. She shakes the thought from her head as she looks down and spots the blood still lining the light gray button up that she had chosen to wear that day. She had nearly forgotten that it was there in the disarray of effort to assist her wife earlier when she had felt nearly drenched in the crimson.

With a squeeze of her wife’s hand, she excuses herself to the bathroom just off but still connected to the room. She flips the switch and closes the door. She approaches the mirror and nearly gasps at the sight of herself. Blood had obviously trickled down the right side of her face from her ruptured eardrum but it was nothing compared to the blood seeped on the left side of her neck and cheek. This blood had belonged to her wife, from the hand and arm wrapped around her neck as she helped Morgan place her in the wheelchair at the scene.

JJ flips the sink on as the water flows freely from the faucet and she places a towel underneath to clean herself up but she halts, a feeling hitting her with such suddenness that she feels lightheaded. She gasps for deep breaths that only come out shallow and choking from the sob that releases itself. JJ is not sure that she can manage to hold together much longer or that she wants to. She’s had her moments that day, sure but she had not entirely allowed herself the cessation of brokenness that she felt overwhelm her at the day’s events.

Right now, she figures, is as good of time as any in the tiny, sterile stall, alone and isolated with her thoughts. Free from any judgment of the outside world that she wasn’t and could never be strong enough to handle what had happened to her and her wife, to handle the job. She held enough of those reservations herself without any foreign opinions. And with this she collapses to the ground, her back meeting the wall and Jennifer Jareau Prentiss allows herself falls apart for a while.


	5. you look for something to pull you through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am terrible at writing dialogue heavy chapters so forgive me. i consider this whole thing a little test in bettering myself as a writer. please be patient in waiting for new chapters as i still am in the processing of writing them.
> 
> i own nothing, don't shoot.

It was much later that night, nearing ten o’clock and with Emily still unconscious, JJ had stepped out of the room leaving Penelope on watch to get some coffee and call the kids to tell them goodnight as she knew Will would have them up later due to the fact that they didn't have school the next day. She knew Rosaline was asleep as she was just approaching a year old and had developed a pattern of passing out at eight o’clock and for that, she was grateful but talking to her boys was calming her.

“Alright, buddy, can I talk to your dad for a minute please?” JJ asks sweetly through the phone as she hears the shuffling of her eldest son handing the phone off to Will.

“Hey, chére,” Will croaks in his southern accent through the phone. “What’s going on with Emily? I wasn’t given an update earlier and I been watching the news, it’s pretty horrible.”

“I know and I’m sorry, it’s just been crazy but uh,” JJ sighs and sucks in a deep breath for a moment before relaying the update. “She, uh, the bomb did pretty extensive damage and her right leg, it’s- she lost it, they had to amputate right at the knee.”

“Oh, darling, I’m-” Will cuts himself short, a little overwhelmed himself with the news. He knew it had been serious but he couldn’t help the terrible feeling in his gut as he had grown a certain fondness for Emily even despite their differences since her and JJ had gotten together. “I’m so sorry, JJ.”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Will,” she breathes a heavy sigh into the device. Will had always been a good shoulder to turn to even after their divorce. It’s not that she didn’t love the man but her love for Emily was just that much stronger and Will knew and understood this, as much as it hurt sometimes. “I mean, I nearly lost her again, she-”

“Don’t do that to yourself, JJ,” Will says calmly. “You didn’t lose her and Henry, Michael and Roz still have both of their moms, it’s just gonna be a little different for a while but you’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“Thanks, Will, for everything,” JJ says incredulously at this man’s resolve. “You’ve been so great with everything especially taking Roz when she’s not even-”

“She’s my goddaughter, you know?” Will says with lightness in his tone even through the distance that makes JJ smile. “So in some ways I’m the only daddy that little girl knows.”

JJ laughs now, shaking her head and groaning, “Just don’t let Em catch you saying that.”

Will scoffs a chuckle, “You know I do still value my life, Jareau.”

She sees the elevator doors open, her haggard looking team consisting of Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, Reid and Lewis all piling out one-by-one. She sees the tired and frustrated looks they wear and she knows it’s never a good sign, clearly not having gotten much of anywhere in the investigation since she last saw them.

“I know, Will,” JJ says quickly, not wanting to rush but needing to fill the team in on the parts of Emily’s injuries that she had left out of their communications throughout the day. “The team just got here so I should talk to them but I’ll call you in the morning and thanks again.”

“Anytime, Jay,” Will offers kindly. “Go take care of your little lady.”

“I will, bye,” she hangs up the phone as the team approaches her. She gives them a quick tight-lipped smirk and finds herself engulfed in Morgan’s bulging arms, holding her taut like he’s just happy to see her again. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve at times like this, not able to mask the emotions so well when the unsub hits this close to home.

“Hey now, don’t boggart the blonde,” Reid quips and Morgan releases JJ before turning and raising one sculpted eyebrow at the genius who simply shrugs with a lopsided grin. “I need a hug too.”

JJ quickly takes Reid in her arms and gives him a swift but tight hug because she knows how he is with physical contact and honestly, she feels like she could fall asleep or apart again if held too tightly.

“How’s Prentiss?” Hotch asks seriously while his hands remain in his pocket. His usually perfectly placed tie now loosened and crooked after their long day.

“She’s still out,” JJ says regretfully as she looks over the rest of the team. “The doctors say it’s normal with all the trauma her body has been through with the blood loss and surgery, it’s just trying to heal.”

“Can we see her?” Morgan doesn’t waste any time asking, just wanting to see his partner in one piece whether she was awake or not was beside the point.

“Uh, yeah, maybe in a little bit but there’s something I didn’t want to tell you guys over the phone but you need to know before you walk in there,” JJ says earnestly and the team looks at her like all the gravity in the world was laced in her next words. “She’s okay but she, uh, we all saw but there was nothing they could do to save her right leg and so they had to amputate at the joint in her knee.”

“ _Dannazione_ ,”* Rossi utters under his breath, JJ didn’t exactly know what it meant but she knew it had to be some form of curse while Reid looks choked up. Lewis was staring at the ground somberly, one arm going across her chest as the other hand reaches for her forehead. Hotch was looking with the same sternness he always did but there was some kind of regret there in his nearly black irises that JJ couldn’t quite place. Morgan is the least surprised but also looking the most devastated by the revelation.

“I mean, I saw her injuries but I just didn’t think-” Morgan starts but can’t finish as his hands go to his waist and he shakes his head. JJ can tell his temper is starting to flare up again and so she places her hand on his bicep to keep him grounded. “I’m gonna kill the bastards that did this to her, Jennifer.”

JJ just nods completely understanding the emotion but she hadn’t quite reached the anger stage as she was still processing the new development herself. “I know and trust that were gonna get these guys but she’s okay and that’s all that matters to me right now.”

“That’s understandable,” Rossi says with a nod of his head. “Is there anything that we can do?”

She sighs as she tries to process the question, her mind drawing a blank before she thinks of something, “Yeah, our go-bags are still in one of the SUVs and I could really use a change of clothes.”

“Consider it done, bella,” Rossi says before pulling JJ into a hug and placing a kiss on the blonde’s forehead as he recovers the keys out his pocket, also reaching out for the set that Morgan offers him and drawing Lewis along with him back to the elevator.

JJ takes one look over at Reid, she can already tell that his head is practically spinning ninety-to-nothing with statistics and facts about amputations and recovery times, she sighs, “How are you doing over there, Spence?”

“You know there are nearly two million people living with limb loss in the United States and a hundred-and-eighty-five thousand amputations occur each year,” Reid says quickly, the remaining team members looking at him as if he’d grown a second head. JJ just gazes wearily knowing this was Reid’s process. “But I can’t find or figure any statistics on when or if she’ll walk again as it tends to be a case-by-case development.”

Morgan looks as if he’s about to bite the boy’s head clean off, “Seriously, Reid? Not helping at all.”

“Derek, it’s fine,” JJ says pacifyingly but honestly she felt a little unsettled that even Reid couldn’t quantify probabilities right now. Her hands pulling at her belt loops before setting them on her waist.

“I know it’s not helping, Morgan, that’s the problem,” Reid says sadly, lowering his head before his big eyes look up to bore into the blonde agent’s. “I’m sorry, JJ.”

“Look, its fine, it’s just gonna take some time,” JJ says as she knows what subject she’s about to have to broach but wishing she didn’t have to. “Speaking of time, Hotch…”

“It’s already done,” Hotch says with a quick shake of his head. “Whatever you two need, you’ll get and I’ll make sure it passes with the brass. What’s important right now is that Emily heals.”

“I don’t even know when or if she’ll ever be able to return to work,” JJ sighs, her hand worrying her forehead now at the thought she really hadn’t let herself consider before.

Reid adds quickly, “Or in what capacity but the Bureau and profiling is her life, is she gonna be able to give it up?”

“It would kill her,” Morgan offers solemnly looking quickly from Reid to JJ who simply nods but then puts her arms out in front of her as if to steady herself.

“Look, we’ll kill ourselves trying to figure out all of the unknowns right now,” JJ sighs in resolution. “All I want is just to change out of these bloody clothes and my wife to wake up.”

The agents all nod, seeming to sink and drift off into their own thoughts on the matter. Derek goes to walk down the hall and Reid follows him. Hotch takes a seat, his hands going to his temple looking a little worn out with his duties. JJ takes the seat across from him, she feels smaller than normal for some reason as her hands tuck themselves between her knees.

“What have you guys found?” JJ enquires with wide eyes, staring at the floor. Hotch is taken off guard a little by the question and looks at the blonde agent.

“JJ, I don’t think it’s a good id-”

“Hotch,” JJ says seriously, now looking him in the eye. “Those bastards nearly killed my wife and this is my job, I have a right to know.”

Hotch sighs, knowing she’s right but still hesitantly shares, “There was another letter, this time sent to the Washington Post that claimed loose Islamic ties as responsible for the bombing but it’s being kept under wraps until we can authenticate it.”

“Do we think that it’s the same guys?” JJ probes, now curious as to whether it could be true.

“We’re not sure,” the dark-haired man offers with a shake of his head. “Reid was able to confirm some of the basis of the claims from the other letter and with how well he knows the Koran and the little of the Islamic language he recognizes but terrorism isn’t exactly his forte and honestly without…”

“Without Emily, it’s hard for us to authenticate the claim,” she finishes for him, he nods solemnly while JJ sighs and closes her eyes. “I mean I spent six months in the Middle East so I’m willing to take a look at it for you but Hotch, I don’t have the linguistic skills or the history that Em does with those countries.”

“I know and we appreciate it but B team is already hunting down another terrorism expert to help verify the statement but something’s not right about it,” Hotch says skeptically. “It just seems too simple and I doubt that any true Muslim would put themselves in the middle of an American race war.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t make much sense really,” JJ says, attempting to connect the dots in her brain. “Islamic terrorists are political bombers who tend to strike positive symbols of American ways of life to tear it down or demean it, look at 9/11 or the Boston bombings but I guess you can’t get more American than racial politics but I don't think that's it.”

“Morgan spent time with ATF going over the bomb fragments that we're recovered from the scene and said they were similar to the Boston Marathon bombings but deadlier, pressure cooker bomb with nails, shrapnel, fireworks and bullets encased and those bombers were Muslim,” Hotch relays in a moment of lucidity. “But nothing about this day seems to fit, this wasn't supposed to happen this way and Emily was never supposed to be caught in the crossfire.”

JJ takes a deep breath at this thought and her fingers worry the crease between her eyebrows that she feels has deepened since the day began. Hotch looks her over, unintentionally profiling the blonde woman for a moment before he speaks.

“I know we all asked how Emily was doing but how are you doing, JJ?” he inquires in a soft tone.

“I’m fine, Hotch,” she sighs, trying her best to reassure her boss. “There’s still a ringing in my ears but you know the injury will heal-”

“I wasn’t talking about physically,” Hotch austerely states, cutting his dark eyes that had been downcast up to the blonde agent across from him.

JJ hesitates under the intense scrutiny of his gaze, her mouth opens and closes multiple times in search of an answer but all she can come up with is, “I don’t know what to do or how to do this, Hotch.”

“What do you mean?” he questions kindly, his brow furrowing.

“I mean, when she wakes up…” JJ trails off, her eyes growing wider at the thought. “She’s not going to take this well, I mean after it all sets in. What this means for her and her job, our jobs and the recovery time that this kind of thing will take-”

Hotch nods in understanding now, knowing the brunette well enough to predict her behavior, “She’ll shut down and compartmentalize until the dam fills to the point of breaking and it won’t be pretty when it finally does if she lets herself get to that point.”

“She will and we all know she's the worst patient,” JJ states lightly before her eyes grow darker, tilting her head down. “And I don't think the kids and I will be enough.”

“You know that’s not true, Jennifer,” Hotch tries to reassure but he knows in some ways that she’s right. JJ looks up at him and the serious weight in her eyes makes him physically sit straighter in his chair.

“We both know it is,” she retorts. “The job is more her life than anything, Hotch and if she can’t do that then… profiling is her purpose, more than being a wife and a mother and I’ve always known that cause she’s damn good at what she does.”

“You’re right, she would have probably never become a wife or a mother if it weren’t for you,” Hotch says and JJ glares at him, he doesn’t miss the flash of hurt in the younger woman like it was an inference that she had ruined her wife’s possible career. “But you are here and you love her and will support her.”

“It won’t be enough,” JJ’s eyes start to fill with tears. “She’ll go crazy without the job, she’ll lose her determination and I think she would rather just curl up and die.”

“But you don't get to make that decision, she got by in Paris without the job just fine and you know why that was?” Hotch shakes his head the slightest bit, JJ looks up at him with vulnerability. “It’s because she had you so don’t ever think that you alone are not enough for her, Jennifer.”

JJ reacts somewhere between a scoff and a gasp, sniffling a bit and her finger swipes the tear at the tip of her nose away, “You know we had a fight last night?”

“She told me this morning,” Hotch reveals with a nod as JJ looks up stunned and possibly even a slight betrayed. “She didn’t go into detail, just requested that you two be put together as partners at the park.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m the one that will go crazy,” JJ says looking Hotch in the eye again. He furrows his brow in confusion, not ever believing he would hear words like that coming from the blonde. “I just- I sometimes wonder if I’m objective enough about the job, that I can separate it sometimes anymore.”

Hotch raises his eyebrows at the confession, thrown a little off guard, “You’ve never told me this.”

She shakes her head, “Because I’ve never even been able to admit it to myself until now… When Will and I were still married, we had this pact that if it was ever too much and it ever came too close that we’d call it and just walk away to lead normal lives. I- I don’t think I know what that looks like or that I’m even capable of doing that now.”

“How so?” Hotch inquires, the concern mixed in the depth of his voice.

“Think about it, Hotch, ever since Afghanistan I literally haven’t been able to stop,” JJ says with grief. “I mean, Emily and Doyle, Matthew Downs and Izzy Roger nearly killed Will and took my child and then Hastings and Askari, now this and I _still_ don’t think I can... If all of that wasn’t enough, _close_ enough for me to walk away then what ever could be? And what will be the cost?”

Hotch stares her down, mouth in a straight line, brow furrowed. Honestly if he didn’t know any better he’d think he was having this discussion with the blonde’s wife but this was JJ. He’d witnessed and recognized the change in his agent since she came back to the unit as a profiler but he really hadn’t delved that far into the true reasons that she had been pushing so hard into the job. He’s not entirely sure that she had either.

“JJ,” for once the unit chief is at a loss for words.

“I mean, you lost your wife, Hotch,” JJ whispers soberly as Hotch’s face stresses to stay neutral. “And today, only inches kept me from losing mine.”

Both of the agents are broken from their stare down as Spencer and Derek return with coffee. For all of Reid’s social ineptness, he picks up on the tension between his teammates and he swallows before asking, “Is everything alright?”

A fake smile laces her lips as she looks back at the genius, she just nods her head blindly then looks back at her unit chief who is still staring at her thoroughly. Neither one entirely convinced that it would be after their discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Rossi's curse ("dannazione") is "goddamn it" in Italian.


	6. a quiet strength to hold onto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is pretty long. another one heavily influenced by "Stronger" but it's one of the last. i didn't really know how to go about the hospital scenes so you'll have to forgive me for being unoriginal. but this is a big one so i'm posting a little earlier than anticipated because i was feeling generous. happy new year, everybody!
> 
> i am currently attempting to write chapter ten and having the most ridiculous writer's block. be patient with me.
> 
> once again, unedited by anyone other than me.

Penelope Garcia’s eyelids are feeling particularly heavy and she is blinking slower and longer, it seems that the emotions of this particular friday are getting to her more than usual. She was typically the one that could go days on little-to-no sleep, surviving solely on coffee and internet searches, that of which she was running now for the team. Her fingers and laptop at the ready as she is looking through local Islamic groups that may tend to lean towards the violent and extremist side though she honestly wasn’t coming up with much.

Suddenly she hears a deeper hiss come from the machines that are helping her dark-haired friend breathe. She continues her search until she spots out of her peripheral the abrupt movement of Emily Prentiss’ hand as it moves upwards to her stomach, her head suddenly lurching forward in a slight disoriented bob and her other arm lifting in the air just hanging. For a moment, Penelope is stunned at the sight before tossing her laptop on a nearby table and jumping from her seat.

“Prentiss?” Garcia asks as she leans over the bed, her friend’s arm going slack between them. “Oh, Emily, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

Penelope distinctly feels Emily grasping weakly at her forearm then she sees the brown orbs of Prentiss’ eyes staring at her though they are still barely open. She can tell that the woman’s state is hazy at best but she still spots the inquiring and slightly alarmed look in her friend’s eyes.

“Okay, okay,” Penelope breathes out slowly to calm if only herself. She grabs a hold of the hand that grasps her arm. “Emily, hon, there was an explosion at Emancipation Park, do you remember that? Well, you were right next to it and um-”

Garcia can’t manage to complete her sentence but her eyes cut lower on her friend’s body, at a loss in knowing how to say what she needed to say. The angle of the bed allowing her torso to be elevated, Emily manages to lift her head slightly, her eyes falling to her leg before she is suddenly collapsing back against the mattress. The brunette’s forehead creasing, eyes shut for a second before opening and revealing all the hurt and confusion that absolutely breaks Penelope’s heart.

That’s when Garcia notices the woman’s right hand moving slightly, her thumb and index finger pressed together as they travel in sync. The blonde woman inquires, “What’s that, Princess? You want to write something? Okay, okay, just hold onto your pretty little butt.”

Then Garcia is grasping for her laptop bag and scrounging before she pulls out her bright pink notepad and matching unicorn pen and returning to her friend’s side, handing her the pen and holding up the pad as her friend slowly starts to scribble. The tech analyst cranes her neck to read the writing.

“‘Is JJ-’ oh, honey, JJ is just fine,” Penelope soothes. “She had a ruptured eardrum but it was minor, I promise and the whole team is here, just down the hall and everyone is okay.”

She notices Emily’s eyes close and she seems to be harder of breathing, the blonde looking at her friend worried, her mouth moving a hundred miles an hour with hounding questions, “Are you okay? How are you feeling? Do you need a nurse?”

The shake of Prentiss’ head is undeniable in answer to the last question and Garcia almost laughs but instead just bites her lip at the older woman’s stubbornness. She notices Emily start to write again and struggles to read the text that was upside down from her point of view but she is able to decipher it. The words, ‘SAW THE UNSUB’ clearly inscribed on the pink paper. And Penelope’s eyes go wide behind her glasses and she’s frozen for half a second before she’s back in action.

“Oh- oh my god, okay, I’m gonna grab Hotch and JJ and the team,” Garcia says quickly, placing a quick pat to her friend’s arm as she starts to head for the door as Emily’s head falls back against the pillow. “Don’t move an inch, Princess.”

And with that the blonde woman is out the door and making her way down the hallway to the waiting room of the ICU before barging through the open door where she finds JJ, Morgan and Hotch all standing huddled together while Rossi, Reid and Lewis were sitting and clearly trying to get a little rest. She notices briefly that JJ had changed clothes since she had last left the hospital room, not a bad idea considering that she probably would give her wife a heart attack if she walked back and the brunette saw all the blood that adorned her earlier.

Suddenly all eyes are on Garcia as she stops still, her mouth opening and closing in short breaths from getting there so quickly.

“E-Em, she’s awake and she wrote this,” Penelope spits and holds out the bright notepad. “She said she saw the unsub or the bomber or someone, I don’t know.”

JJ’s eyes go wide at hearing that her wife was finally awake but she looks damn near terrified at the thought that Emily had been so close to one of the unsubs. She takes off in almost a dead sprint towards the hospital room with Hotch, Morgan and the rest of the team following as well in a hurry. And there would be no slowing the blonde agent down until her blue eyes caught sight of the brown in her wife’s.

She slowed her pace only marginally as she approaches the room, not wanting to frighten her wife with her sudden presence. But she makes her way through the glass door fairly quickly and is at Emily’s side in mere seconds, grabbing ahold of her hand. Tears instantly fill JJ’s eyes as Emily’s head tilts to the right and she looks up with relief written clearly on her face.

The team who had not been far behind start to approach the room but when Hotch and Rossi catch sight of the blonde at her wife’s side, they both halt immediately with Reid and Lewis following suit. Morgan and Garcia are full speed ahead however before being pulled back by the two senior agents and they look at them in confusion.

“Give them a minute,” Hotch relays to the members of the unit. Morgan seems antsy however like his feet will literally not allow him to not walk towards that room.

“She has information, Hotch,” Morgan finally speaks, hating that he would have to interrupt the two married agents’ reunion but it was all in the name of getting justice for their girl. “We need to get in there, we could have these bastards tonight.”

“You heard me, Morgan,” Hotch says, leaving no room for argument. “Any information that Prentiss has will still be prevalent in a minute but right now, Agent Jareau is experiencing the most relief she’s ever felt in her entire life because her wife is awake and alive and we’re not going to take that from them.”

“Oh, my precious babies,” Garcia sighs, a hand going over her heart at the warmth that the sight ensues within her. Morgan looks on at the scene and it instinctively brings a smirk to his face. He knows his boss was right in holding them back momentarily but he can’t help feeling completely and utterly useless if he wasn’t chasing down every lead that could potentially be the downfall of the assholes who put one of his best friends in such a state that landed her here.

Back in the room, JJ is unable to hold back endless tears that shed themselves. She had stopped trying to keep up with the amount of times that she had cried in the last twelve hours; in fact she wouldn’t be surprised if she was even a little dehydrated from how draining it all was. But nothing quite compared to this moment, to looking into the eyes of her lover after a day as long and unpredictable as this one.

“Hey, you,” she breathes barely above a whisper now, overwhelmed at all the emotions she felt inside of herself. “You gave me a bit of a scare today, babe, I thought I’d lost you.”

Emily’s eyes that had been staring into cerulean close now, disappointment and relief all awash on her face at once. She looks back up at her wife and JJ can literally read the expression of frustration at her state from her eyebrows furrowing. She wasn’t surprised however.

“I’m so sorry, I never should’ve walked away from you today,” JJ says regretfully. “I should really have learned by now that only bad things happen when I split up from the team.”

Her wife’s eyes shut again in her own regret as she shakes her head as far it is allowed with the intubation tubes. Her hand scrambles now, feeling and searching the sheets around her for the object that Garcia had left behind while JJ looks on in confusion. She finds the white pen with the head of a pink unicorn and clicks the mane to initiate it and grabs ahold of her wife’s forearm. She writes slowly but steadily, JJ patient. ‘No, I’m sorry. I love you.’

JJ laughs at the ridiculous notion slightly, shaking her head with the tears never stopping. “God, honey, you have nothing to be sorry about, okay?” JJ tells her, running a hand over her wife’s long, slick dark hair. “None of this was your fault and we’re gonna get through this together, alright?”

She’d seen the strength behind her wife’s eyes entirely, the crease between her eyebrows grows tighter however and now she finally sees what she had been expecting. She sees the fear and vulnerability as the brunette’s brows shoot up in apprehension. JJ squeezes her hand a little firmer, nodding her head with what she hopes to be an affirming smile, “I love you too, you know, so fucking much.”

With a knock on the glass, Rossi pops his head around the corner, not wanting to intrude entirely but the whole team is itching to see their partner, their friend, hell, their family. “We’ve got some very antsy folks out here,” Rossi says with a lopsided smirk. “Is it alright if we come in?”

The blonde looks back at her wife in question and receives a slight nod, and it is only seconds before the whole unit has piled into the room, all wearing different levels of emotions on their faces. Garcia is practically bouncing whether it’s from excited reprieve or nervous energy, no one can tell but it doesn’t really matter. Reid wears a light smile that reads relieved. Tara’s expression borders concern. Hotch is taxing the same remorse that JJ had witnessed earlier but is a little better at hiding it. Rossi appears more neutral, almost like a father figure sporting a supportive smile. Derek ends up on Emily’s other side opposite JJ on her right, grabbing her left hand and holding it tight with both of his, a thankful but troubled look lacing his features.

“You don’t know how good it is to see you, Princess,” he utters quietly. “Don’t know what I’d do without my brown eyed girl and we both know that JJ and I wouldn’t make for good partners.”

The patrons of the room all chuckle but JJ closely monitors her wife’s eyes, she sees them shifting to Derek’s charcoal gray long sleeved shirt that is still spattered with her blood. JJ notices the whites of her wife’s eyes get wider under her eyelids as she stare slightly.

Morgan looks over at the blonde confused momentarily before tracing her eye line down to his shirt and he looks up, sculpted eyebrows twitching with worry before he stutters over his words, “I-I’m sorry, I should’ve changed but I haven’t really had time with all the work we’ve been doing.”

He feels Prentiss’ hand tighten her grip on his own and she’s shaking her head again, as if an attempt at shrugging it off. Hotch’s eyes take in the brunette agent for a minute before speaking up, “Penelope mentioned that you saw one of the bombers?”

At this Emily nods as best she can manage and Hotch and Rossi’s eyes meet in understanding while Morgan seems to be in on the silent, unspoken conversation. JJ shifts uneasily in her seat and clears her throat before speaking, “The guys want to talk to you, get a cognitive and ask some questions, you know the drill. Are you feeling up to that, babe?”

The team waits for an answer in silent patience but they and the blonde all know the answer before the older woman retrieves her left hand from Morgan’s and lifts her thumb in approval. JJ, in full wife-mode and ignoring her inner FBI agent, worries and wonders if it’s a good idea for her wife to relive the moment so soon after all she had been through. But if she knew anything, it was that her wife was stubborn and would not rest until she tried to help in any way she could to catch these unsubs.

“Alright,” JJ says softly with a nod before a team of nurses enters the room and the entirety of the team turns to the women.

“We’re removing the intubation tube,” one of the nurses relays. “We need everyone to clear out.”

“Oh, but we just got-” Penelope starts to protest before Derek approaches from behind her and gives her a light shove towards the door. “We’ll be back, Princess, alright?”

Another nurse speaks up calmly, “We’re just getting ready to get the breathing tube out.”

Emily just nods before the room swirls with controlled commotion again. As the team exits with their farewells, “See ya later”, “It’ll be okay” and what feels like any number of possible things that she can’t quite decipher as she waves them out in a daze.

“We got to get the tube out, okay?” a nurse grabbing a pair of blue nylon gloves says distantly from the corner. “Ready, darling?”

JJ mouths ‘I love you’, squeezing her wife’s hand once, landing a kiss there and starts to get up. Emily holds her wife’s hand that much tighter and yanks her back with force as she refuses to let go, JJ turns back startled and seeing the alarm and concern written on her wife’s face. The nurse with the gloves sees this and approaches Emily.

“What’s wrong, darling?” she asks, calmly. The brunette points to the blonde and the nurse turns her attention to the other woman and then back to her patient who looks panicked. “You want her? Yeah. I’m gonna let her stay, it’s okay. You’re okay, darling. Relax, alright? Relax.”

Emily seems to breathe a little easier with relief as JJ merely stands back a little farther against the bed, happy to be letting the nurses work and do their job to assist her wife. She smiles grimly at the older woman, watching curiously as they proceed with their precise steps. They suction Emily’s mouth to clean it and remove the tape that held the tube in place, reassuring her the entire way.

“Ready, darling?” A nurse asks, more out of polite bedside manner than anything and then continues. “Here we go, girl. Ready?”

She counts to three and tells Emily to take a big breath which she does and then the nurse is pulling the tube out as the brunette wheezes and gags slightly. JJ looks on with nervousness as the tube is much longer than she even expected. When finally relieved, Emily falls into a fit of coughing and a nurse covers her mouth slightly as the brunette agent tries to get her breath then they suction her mouth again. “Relax, slow breaths. Hi?”

“Fuck,” Emily says with a rasp, out of breath as she continues coughing. “Hi.”

The nurses all share a slight laugh and a ridiculous smile comes over JJ's face, “Good job, now we’re gonna put this mask on and just relax.”

As they place the mask over Emily’s mouth and nose, with her breath evening out, JJ feels herself breathing a little easier now before the nurse turns her attention to the blonde, “Alright, you can talk to her but she can’t answer you, okay?”

“Of course,” JJ says with a nod. She watches as the nurse turns with an arched eye back to her wife.

“Yes and no, okay?” the nurse says as she nods and shakes her head in reference, guiding the brunette in how to answer her wife. “Alright, okay, great job, darling. Good to go, girly.”

And with that, the nurses discard their gloves and leave the room, leaving the couple alone again. As she watches the nurses leave, JJ instinctively sits on the bed and grabs at the brunette's hand, before her wife’s voice is calling her, “Hey, Jay?”

JJ doesn't hear the bare murmur that her wife breathes out, between the ringing in her ears and all the distractions of what had just happened. Emily just simply shakes the hand that was holding hers.

“Hmm?” JJ turns back to her partner. Emily has a shit eating grin on her face and JJ would know that look anywhere, it’s when her wife was either about to be sarcastic as hell or tell a really cheesy joke.

“You’re sitting on my leg,” Emily says, the smirk still firmly planted on her lips.

“What?” JJ asks confused and dazed for a second before she realizes the joke, cutting her eyes in mock seriousness towards her wife but scooting forward anyway to the edge of the bed. “Oh, my bad.”

“Hey, you,” Emily says laughing slightly before it turns into light coughing again.

“No talking,” JJ whispers, her thumb running over her wife’s hand in comfort. "No talking."

“I’m a tough broad,” Emily says defiantly between coughs. “I can take it.”

“Shut it, Prentiss,” JJ scolds lightly, looking at her wife seriously. “I know you’re tough and I know you can but just take it easy for now.”

For the first time today, JJ feels relatively steady. Her wife talking to her again and telling the worst jokes on the planet were all signs of normalcy, even though absolutely nothing was normal about this but this was a good sign. JJ has to take the good while she can because she knows that there will be a lot worse to come before it gets better.


	7. while piecing together all you never knew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for getting this little thing to a thousand hits!
> 
> i feel like i shouldn't really have to preface this since it's literally in the tags but this is an angst piece for the majority but it will eventually get better, guys, i promise. don't like it, don't read. thanks.
> 
> this has slight ableist language in it? kind of, not really. just thought i'd warn in case. 
> 
> i own nothing. i'm the sole editor so take it easy.

JJ removes herself from her wife’s side momentarily as she steps out and around the corner of the glass wall that separated Emily from where some of the team stood there in the hallway waiting. Hotch had his hands in his pockets, Morgan looked as impatient as ever and Rossi was looking at JJ expectantly.

“They removed the intubation tube and she’s breathing fine so she’s been cleared to talk to you guys,” JJ says as she approaches the men. “Just take it easy on her and that’s my orders, not the doctor's.”

Derek and Rossi smile and Hotch nods as he says, “Garcia, Reid and Lewis are in the waiting room, they're being sent over some footage that Kevin found on social media so they’ll be sorting through that as we talk to Emily.”

“And don’t worry, Jennifer,” Rossi says, placing a hand on JJ’s shoulder. “You know we would never push her past what we know she can handle.”

And with that the three agents follow their blonde teammate back into the hospital room. Emily still has the oxygen mask haphazardly placed over her nose and mouth before she removes it to speak, “Man, you guys are really dragging your feet on this one.”

“The same could be said of you there, Princess,” Derek smiles good-naturedly at his friend, looking her up and down as he jokes. “Come on and shake a leg.”

“Oh, ouch,” Prentiss feigns hurt with intense sarcasm. JJ smiles but worriedly at her wife, knowing all too well just how many barriers her wife had up, guarding herself for the time being. “Do you think it’s a little too soon for foot in mouth jokes?”

Morgan chuckles as Hotch and JJ both send warning glances between the two friends and agents that speaks volumes about the seriousness needed for the next conversation. “You know we need to ask you about what you saw,” Hotch says hesitantly.

“I didn’t see anything until after JJ went after the other guy,” Emily sighs clearly frustrated, quickly getting down to business. “I definitely think the two were a team and they saw the Kevlar we were wearing so they split up, one intentionally grabbing JJ’s attention away while the other came up behind me.”

JJ seems shocked at her wife’s revelation, she honestly thought the guy she was following had just been a fluke and not an actual suspect but now she was rethinking that. She tries to go over what details she remembers of the man that she had been pursuing but the events of the day are making it a little hazy.

“I honestly didn’t put it together at the scene, that’s why I told JJ that I didn’t have anything before the bomb went off,” Prentiss relays, clearly a little irritated at herself. “But when I woke up it was the only thing that I remembered feeling entirely off about the situation.”

“What did this guy look like?” Derek asks with brows furrowed, more than interested in what his partner had to say about what she recollected of the terrible event.

“Tall, lanky, probably around Hotch’s height, white male, young – maybe twenty, no older than twenty-five,” she struggles to remember and gain insight for a description of the man. “He was wearing all black, baseball cap, sunglasses and he set the backpack he was carrying down against the monument but he was honestly so calm, more than I remember anyone else being.”

“Same with my guy but he was a little shorter than that,” JJ recalls now, sure of herself. “Probably about Morgan’s height but very calm despite the chaos of the crowd.”

“You’re sure he was white?” Rossi has to ask, due to the letter they had received earlier that day. “Nothing ethnic about his features, he didn’t wear anything that might have given away that he belonged to any sort of religious group?”

“Definitely white and not that I can remember…” Emily trails off, struggling to remember something but then her head snaps back up. “On the contrary, he had his sleeves slid up his arms and he had the pagan cross that the Nazi’s used tattooed on his forearm.”

“So we’re looking for white supremacists?” Derek asks confused looking back at Rossi and Hotch.

“The letter sent to the Washington Post must have been trying to throw law enforcement off the scent of the real unsubs,” Rossi pieces together with a nod.

“While also placing blame on Muslims as being responsible for the attack,” Hotch adds and it seems to all make sense in his head now.

“Killing multiple birds with one stone,” Rossi quips with a raise of his eyebrows, he knows he shouldn’t be surprised by the revelation but it never got easier. “Effectively blowing up law enforcement, the objects of his political and racial hate like liberals and the Black Lives Matter movement while also effectively marginalizing a group of people who he sees as the real threat.”

“Wait, what letter?” Emily asks confused at Rossi’s earlier statement. JJ places a hand over one of her wife’s on the bed. She looks concerned as the brunette seems to be breathing a little heavier again.

“A letter was sent to the Washington Post that claimed Islam as the reason behind the attacks,” JJ relays the information to Emily easily. “Reid was able to authenticate that it came from the same source as the other letter and that the few references to the Koran were factual but didn’t get much beyond that.”

Emily’s brow furrows and she seems to come to the same consensus as her teammates, “It definitely seems like a forensic countermeasure but you would think these guys would be proud of what they did and would want to stake claim to it.”

“That’s what we can’t quite figure out yet,” Hotch nods. “They profile as narcissistic white supremacists but they haven’t taken credit for the carnage or the deaths that they’ve caused today.”

“Then they’re not done yet and aren’t ready to be caught,” Prentiss says, staring off into the distance and seeming lost in her thoughts. “How many people- how many were killed?”

JJ swiftly turns her head towards her wife, she was taken off guard by the question simply because she hadn’t asked it herself yet. She hadn’t let her think about most anyone other than her wife, her kids and her team in the last twelve hours. She understands the look of trepidation on the brunette’s face now, completely terrified of the answer.

“Five, two were standing closer to the monument than you were,” Hotch says with grief lining his expression. “Three others were killed where the other bomb had exploded further away.”

The blonde had an exasperated yet confused look on her face, “It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes from when I lost the partner to when both of the bombs went off so how the hell did the guy get so far away from me and still have time to get away?”

The agents seem to look around the room at each other at the same time, it dawning on all of them at that exact moment. Emily voices their thoughts for them with labored breath, “What if he didn’t?”

“Morgan, Rossi, I need you to follow up with the ME and doctors that dealt with the victims of the second bombing,” Hotch immediately orders, all them back into professional mode. “See if they have an ID on any male victims and start searching into their histories, I’ll update Garcia and Reid on what we know.”

With a nod and a glance, Rossi and Morgan are out of the room and making their way through the hospital. Hotch remains in the room for a few minutes longer, he knows that Emily is tiring from her distant glazed look, sweating now from the exhaustion and JJ looking simply horrified at all of what she did and perhaps did not remember from the day.

“Emily,” Hotch’s voice softens as he says her name. “I need you to tell me what else you can remember from after the bombing.”

Emily’s eyes close at this, her breath absolutely ragged now and looks over at JJ who just glances at the mask set on her chest, nodding. The dark haired woman takes the mask and sets it over her face again, hoping to breathe a little easier with assistance of the oxygen but it doesn’t help much as she just shakes her head, tossing it down. “The smell was…”

Hotch sees the older woman struggling a little, “Take your time.”

“It smelled like sulfur and the fourth of July but with blood and burning flesh and I was trying to help but,” Emily stops, hesitating as her eyes go wide again. “Morgan was there and I knew Jen was cause I had heard her voice and then she was next to me and so was…”

JJ’s eyes are pained as she watches her wife relive the moment that she already had so many times. She grips Emily’s forearm now, her eyes downcast unable to look at the aggrieved expression on her wife’s face. She can’t watch her wife experience it again any more than she could stand to remember it either.

“Who else was there, Emily?” Hotch inquires concerned, not wanting to have to push but knowing that there was more locked away in his agent than she remembered.

“He was there, the unsub,” Emily says, her head popping up to look at Hotch in the eyes. “Like he was a spectator or a responder but he was just standing there, taking it all in and I couldn’t really speak but I looked at JJ and I was trying…”

The blonde’s eyes return her gaze to her partner. She couldn’t believe what Emily was recalling now. How had both she and Morgan missed this guy entirely? Had they honestly been that blinded?

“She was talking to me, telling me to relax and calm down,” the dark haired woman reminisces. “I wanted and kept trying to open my mouth to tell her that he was behind her because he was right there but all I could manage to say was ‘Jay’ and I couldn’t breathe then he was gone.”

The younger agent’s eyes spread in horror at this statement, remembering the exact moment that Emily was referencing but she had only had eyes for her wife, she wasn’t even paying the crowd that had gathered or dispersed at that point any attention. Her brows furrow in a pain, regret and guilt. A silent tear makes its way down her right cheek and she turns away to subtly wipe it away. Hotch’s eyes find her however, keeping the moisture a secret but she already knows what he’s about to say.

“JJ, I think maybe we should do a cognitive with you,” Hotch suggests quietly. But the blonde is simply shaking her head in the negative.

“It would be pointless, Hotch,” she offers uselessly with a shrug. “Honestly, once Morgan and I cleared the area I didn’t pay the crowd any attention; I was just helping the wounded and trying to get to Emily so I didn’t see anything.”

Hotch’s eyes fall in disappointment and it stings JJ more than she’d like to admit to know that she was likely the cause of it. But Emily is speaking up again however before she can let it linger, “He took off his hat and sunglasses after the bomb went off, he had buzzed sandy brown hair and I’m pretty sure his eyes were either green or hazel.”

The tall, dark man was happy that the brunette agent was able to help despite all she had been through as he knew that she would only beat herself up had she not been able to remember anything, much the way he knew the blonde agent was already doing herself. “That’s good, Emily,” Hotch nods simply as he seems to come to a conclusion. “I think we have enough for a preliminary profile to give law enforcement and it’s getting late so I’m gonna let you two get some rest.”

“Well, hell, I’ve been resting on my ass all day,” Emily quips sarcastically. “But thanks, Hotch, and you’ll keep us up-to-date with what’s happening?”

“Of course,” Hotch nods once, offering a tight-lipped smile to the woman in the hospital bed before he starts to make for the hallway again. JJ is quickly following him however after squeezing her wife’s hand tight once and exiting.

“Hotch, wait up,” JJ sighs as she approaches her unit chief, her head falling into her hands slightly. “Look, I just want to say I’m sorry and that I let my personal-”

“No, JJ, you didn’t,” Hotch shakes his head at the blonde profiler before him, already knowing where she was headed with her apology. “You reacted the exact same way any of us would when our family is the one at stake and I’m sure if I ask Morgan the same question, if he saw the unsub that he will tell me the exact same thing you did.”

“But Hotch, I let my personal feelings cloud my awareness at the scene,” JJ relents, feeling the guilt firing any sort of shot that might stick, almost in desperation to blame herself for anything.

“You were injured and your adrenaline was moving so fast I’m honestly surprised you remember anything from the event,” Hotch says seriously, stressing his point and not just placating. “JJ, you have nothing to be sorry or feel guilty for, the only thing you should be feeling right now is relief that your wife is here in that hospital room alive and well, is that understood?”

JJ is taken aback at just how reassured she feels by her boss’ clear encouragement and earnest words. He had meant every single one of them, she had been able to read that much. He didn’t hold the judgment or disappoint that she thought he had at all. She nods her head now, realizing exactly what she was doing. It was classic, typical even. She was projecting how she felt about herself onto Hotch and he just was not having it. He knew well enough how to temper these kind of emotional fires quickly.

“Thank you, Hotch,” she says tearfully now. She meets his dark eyes with her crystal blue ones, a different kind of fire lace her irises now, Hotch notices. She seems more determined than he had seen her all day since the blast. "Will you do me a favor?”

“Of course,” he says sternly as he furrows his thick brows. “Anything.”

“Get these sons of bitches that hurt my wife,” JJ says through gritted teeth, the anger that Morgan had started to display earlier now finally making its way to set into her bones. “One way or the other.”

“We’ll get them, Jennifer,” Hotch nods more firmly than he had throughout the entirety of the last twenty-four hours, certainly feeling surer of himself. His own determination setting in his tired, aching muscles. “We won’t rest until we do, I can assure you of that. You and Emily are just as much our family as anyone and no one hurts our family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lord, i'm gonna take a break from all the dialogue in the next chapter just for my own sanity cause i really hate trudging through my unoriginal dialogue and you probably do too.


	8. to mourn what's been skewed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the angst continues. i eased up on dialogue for my own sake and for yours. 
> 
> and because i'm so far ahead in writing chapters, i might be posting in quicker succession which is lucky for you guys, i guess.
> 
> i own nothing, i only type and edit.

_As Emily and JJ approach the monument, a few SWAT officers encompassed them as they surveyed the area surrounding the statue. People were crawling over the barricades and there were no clear lines of us and them. She honestly didn’t believe there was even a line in that sand at the moment, only power and struggle. Watching people descend upon the statue, some even mounting it but the raven-haired woman looked on as SWAT fought to keep the crowd in line which only fueled the fire more with their show of force. The situation escalating with every second that passed._

_Emily was frustrated, she glanced over at her wife whose eyes were canvassing at lightning fast speed but she could tell that the blonde was getting nowhere as she was. Suddenly, a shorter stocky man descends from beside them and brushes JJ’s shoulder almost violently despite his calm demeanor. They take him in, his black cargo pants, hoodie and hat while dark sunglasses had obscured his face. It’s only seconds before JJ has eyes on him and starts to follow him away from her wife._

_“Jennifer!” Emily called ineffectively as her wife’s eyes only turn back ever so briefly to nod in telling her wife to trust her and that she’s got this. All Emily had was a bad feeling._

_She looked behind her now from where the man had come from. She notices another somewhat taller man wearing almost identical clothing some ten feet from her. He sets his backpack down against the monument and goes to light a cigarette with a cell phone in his hand. The man briefly glances at Emily before he seems to see someone he knew in the crowd, calling out to them and waving before walking in that general direction. The older woman tries to see who the man is referencing but finds nothing and when she turns back the man is gone._

_She sighs as she turns back outward to the crowd in desperate search of her wife’s long blonde ponytail and Kevlar. She thinks she spots her several feet away but she notices the younger agent moving at a much faster pace as does Emily’s heart rate._

_Suddenly the brunette’s right foot and leg start to tingle, she stamps it into the ground a few times before it goes completely numb. The panic starts to set in with the pain shooting through, growing more and more apparent before the light absolutely blinds her..._

Emily Prentiss wakes practically drenched in sweat and gasping for deeper breaths which she manages to find through the oxygen mask nearby. She feels the same strange sensation of pain that she had felt in the dream. Hell, it hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been a nightmare of reminiscence blended with the cold stark reality of the present. The pain in her leg and foot is now the cause of her rapid heartbeat.

The room is dark, a few lights from the city protrude through the blinds and a couple of lights are around the room to guide any nurse that might need to enter during the night but it was still dark. Emily’s eyes search the contents of the room further. She notices the outline of the body lounged in the pullout chair that is perfectly silhouetted against the shadow of street lights. She feels the sting return and she winces, breathing even harder.

She’s not sure if it’s her moaning or the fact that the low volume of the heart monitor was peeking with much quicker secession but JJ stirs slightly. Emily’s lip catches between her teeth to keep her groaning under control as the pain shoots through, hoping to allow her wife to go back to sleep but she knows it is more than unlikely but she had to try. Her body sweating again from the pain and it seems to also travel in odd patterns in her left leg as well. Honestly if Emily didn’t know any better, she was certain that she can feel her right foot there now.

“Em?” she hears the familiar croak of sleep in her wife’s voice, one heard so many times from all the near sleepless night with Roz. “Baby, is everything alright?”

Emily hates the whimper that escapes her throat at the pain. What would be her right foot shooting with an ache so strong, the brunette punches the bed sheets. “Fuck,” she murmurs through gritted teeth and suddenly JJ is at her side.

“What’s wrong, babe?” JJ asks quickly, concern and worry fueling her exhausted bones to a heightened state of awareness. She takes in the wrench of uneasiness on her wife’s face and she quickly is reaching for the button that she knew now alerted the nurses.

“Fuckin’ hurts, Jay,” Emily murmurs, a little breathless from the agony shooting through her leg. She sits up and grabs at her right leg, rubbing as she stares at the emptiness on the other side of the bed where the rest of her leg should be but the stark pain she feels there is perplexing to say the least. She grits her teeth.

JJ seems to realize the thoughts running through her wife’s head as she comes around on the right side of her wife, she is gently pushing the brunette back against the bed, “Lie back, Em, I was talking to the nurses and they said it was normal.”

“Normal? It’s fucking normal to feel pain in a foot you no longer have?” she bites back in more irritation than she meant to have towards her wife but she was in pain and frustrated. JJ just eyes her with sympathy and as she slowly places her hand over her wife’s thigh.

“Yes, it’s called phantom pain, okay?” JJ explains patiently, she was lucky that she was one of the few people who could actually handle Emily like this, at her worst and fighting back despite needing help. “The nurse gave me some tips on what to do if it happens, alright? Can I?”

“If it helps, you can do whatever,” Emily says with a roll of her eyes, staring back up at the ceiling and willing this all to be the actual nightmare. She was more than willing to wake back up at the scene of the bombing as long as she didn’t have to experience this incredible discomfort and the pitying look in her wife eyes that she knew she held despite the darkness of the room.

JJ tentatively slides her hand down her wife’s right thigh, slow and easily descending towards Emily’s knee where the surgery had taken place. She is all too aware of the bandaging there and easily maneuvers to avoid it. When her hand finally lands at the apex of the bones of her knee, Emily hisses slightly, her breathing growing rougher and the sweat coming out cold upon her forehead. The blonde nervously inquires, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the older woman nods, unable to look her wife in the eye or even directly in the face. “It’s a little better but Jesus Christ, Jen.”

“I know, I know,” JJ says as she leans down, seeing her wife unable to meet her eyes more than likely in shame. She connects their foreheads, tilting her partner’s head until their eyes meet and she sees all the pain, loss and indignity in her wife’s deep irises. She does the only thing she knows to do in that moment and she lands a light, unsure kiss against the older agent’s lips.

The brunette is able to lift her shaky hands to place them along the blonde’s cheek and the back of her neck, meeting and deepening the kiss. She needs this connection to hold the threads of her psyche together for just that much longer until she can truly adjust to the idea that everything has changed for her, that nothing will ever be the same. The thought that she couldn’t even stand on her own two feet was a thought that could unravel the dark agent if she let it, so instead she lets herself melt into the warm comforting lips of her wife if only for a moment.

The two suddenly pull apart at the sound of a nurse clearing her throat as they notice her standing by the door, looking away and trying to seem busy as she halts by the doorway. She fiddles with a needle in her gloved hands and finally looks up when she feels it safe.

“Sorry to interrupt but we saw your call for assistance at the station,” the nurse says sheepishly. “We imagine that you’re experiencing some discomfort, agent?”

“If by discomfort, you mean shooting, stinging agony then yeah, sure,” Emily shoots shortly with a bitter sarcasm and a shrug of her shoulders that leaves JJ grabbing her hand and squeezing tight in warning.

“Alright, well, it’s a little early,” the nurse says as she approaches the stubborn patient. JJ moves out of the way and to the opposite side of the bed again where she had risen from her impromptu sleeping accommodations. “But it’s not a problem to administer your pain regiment now, is that alright?”

“Beam me up, Scotty,” Emily quips humorously. The nurse just shakes her head as JJ shoots an unbelieving scour at her wife’s nerdiness in the midst of the moment.

“Didn’t take you for a Star Trek fan,” the nurse says lightly as she prepares to insert the needle into the IV that was inserted into her arm.

“I’m not but if you practically lived with a few of my co-workers like I do then you’d pick up a few lines here and there too…” Emily says as she closes her eyes, feeling the substance enter and shoot through her veins and she relishes the relief she finds quickly. JJ’s worrying eyes never leaving her face.

“Who knew the FBI was full of such nerds?” the nurse jokes, knowing that her patient was not going to be ensuing in much deeper conversation any further. “Just rest now, that should help you sleep through the rest of the night and we’ll be back by in the morning, okay?”

Emily just nods, her eyes opening but with a little more of glaze to them than before. JJ takes her wife’s hand again and looks towards the nurse and offers, “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem,” the nurse concedes but aims her attention towards the blonde agent in the room. “I’d get as much shut eye as possible yourself, darling because I’ve seen you around here and I know you’ve had a long day.”

And JJ can’t argue that, it had probably been a longer day than even the ones that were filled with around the clock work, 24-hour cases that allowed for no sleep and no rest. Nonstop she could do as long as her body was still moving, caffeine pumping her system but all this waiting around and worrying had the younger agent exhausted beyond comprehension.

“Thank you, ma’am,” JJ says with a tight but tired smile lacing her lips. “I’ll try.”

And with that the nurse exits the room with no further fuss. JJ’s eyes fall back to her wife, taking in the clear relief written all over the older woman’s body. She asks more rhetorically than anything else, “Feeling better?”

“Anyone would feel better with morphine shooting through their system,” Emily deadpans and JJ laughs quickly, knowing she was right. A question seems to come out of the blue in her drug-induced haze, “Hey, what about the kids? Are they okay?”

“Oh, yeah, they’re fine, honey,” JJ says, squeezing her wife’s hand in reassurance. “Will had his vacation this weekend and he said he couldn’t think of a better way to spend it.”

Emily simply rolls her eyes at the resolve but still felt grateful that he was there regardless, she shifts a little in the bed, “Why does that not surprise me?”

“He was worried about you, you know?” JJ says looking at her raven-haired partner seriously.

“That’s nice of him,” Emily says tiredly, trying to keep her voice even. “You know, to worry and keep the kids at such short notice and all.”

JJ looks at her wife confused, not being able to read the dark features that line her wife’s face. She never really understood what goes on underneath that layer of wall that Emily puts up whenever her ex-husband was brought up in the conversation. “He sees you as family too, Em, despite everything.”

“Did he tell them?” the brunette inquires hastily and almost harshly, her eyes downcast at the sheets of the bed.

“No, no, not yet,” JJ shakes her head, unsure of where that question had come from, although her and Will had discussed when to tell the boys as Rosalyn was still too young to understand. “The doctor’s said you’ll be here a couple of days so I figured Will could bring the kids up here on Sunday and we’d tell them then. Is that okay?”

Emily nods aimlessly and JJ hears more than sees, in the midst of the darkness, her sniffle and the blonde pulls her wife into a tight embrace, knowing these tears would be brief and that the dark-haired woman wouldn’t let herself linger in the sadness for too long. “How are we gonna do this, Jen?”

“Just like this, Em,” JJ just held her tighter to her chest so scared that if she let go that the older woman would disappear from her forever. She let time move and doesn’t let go, and she knew it was only a few minutes before she heard Emily’s breath even out. “Just like this.”


	9. while learning falsehoods in truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i like this chapter but as i was writing it, the angst came out more than ever towards the end and i nearly wrote myself into a hole with it but i think it turned out alright considering... 
> 
> i own nothing. i’m the sole editor.

Emily wasn’t coursed awake from a nightmare this time, she chalks that up to the drugs that have her dazed as she blearily opens her eyes. The brightness of the room too much for her sensitive irises as she shuts them again, trying to gain some bearings. As she looks around the room, it looks as undisturbed as last night as she looks to her left, the chair that had been occupied by her wife for the night no longer held the blonde but instead the brown, bulky agent who was resting, his elbow to the arm of the chair as his cheek fell against his fist. She furrows her eyebrows at the revelation.

“Derek?” she questions quietly, still half-asleep but Morgan startles awake as if a gun had gone off. He swiftly grabs ahold of the dark-haired agent’s hand as it was within arm’s reach. “Hey, where’s JJ?”

“Reid and Lewis offered to take her out for breakfast to get away from the sterile walls for an hour or so and I was ordered to get some rest,” Morgan regales while wiping some sleep from his eyes, gesturing to the white walls surrounding them. “It wasn’t exactly optional.”

“No, that’s good,” Emily shakes her head. “She shouldn’t have to be stuck here just cause I am.”

Morgan smiles at his friend’s resolve but shakes his head, “I don’t think blondie shares that sentiment because Reid had to bribe her with Cheetos to even get her out of here.”

“That bad, huh?” Emily laughs and it feels good for once. Despite the heaviness of drugs in her system, she felt lighter than the previous night. “Well, in that case I’m happy to see you.”

“Same here, Princess,” Derek says seriously again, the pity that Prentiss was already tiring of seeing laced there and her goal was to get her friends to cut that out as soon as possible. “I don’t know what I’d do if I had lost you, I don’t think the unit could’ve survived that.”

“Bullshit,” the brunette calls it as she sees it, thinking about Doyle and Paris. “You guys got by just fine after I died the first time.”

“No, we barely got by that time,” Morgan reminds her. “Hotch got reassigned, Reid was crying on JJ’s shoulder half the time and Garcia and I were only holding together by trying to avenge you besides it sounds really bad when you have to use words like ‘the first time.’”

Emily laughs again, she doesn’t know why but she does. She’s knows there’s no joke in what Derek was saying but honestly, the absurdity of her life turned the tragedy into comedy and she was forced to laugh. “Speaking of avenging, how’s the case going? What do you guys got?”

Morgan averts his eyes from his friend. He looks to be weighing his options on what he should and shouldn’t tell her. Emily rolls her eyes at her friend’s protectiveness but honestly if he thought that something like this could get to her then she should’ve never been in the FBI to start with.

“If I recall correctly, I’m still a supervisory special agent despite my injuries,” Emily continues in her best attempt at getting her friend to spill. “So give it to me straight, Morgan. What did you and Rossi get with the doctors and MEs last night?”

“The second bomber died by suicide in the blast,” Morgan relents; he was fooling himself if he ever thought he could keep the reality of the situation from someone as strong and smart as Prentiss. “He didn’t have any ID but we’ve got his picture that we found on social media from the rally floating around and Garcia’s running his DNA through the system, we’re just waiting on results.”

“Ah, the story of our lives,” Emily sighs and thinks for a moment, processing the information. “Derek, how far away was JJ when the second bomb went off?”

“Something like twenty feet but it didn’t touch her,” Morgan tries to appease his friend’s worry. “It just rocked her and burst her eardrum but she’s really fine, Prentiss.”

“Yeah, no, I know that,” the older agent says with a nod of her head, not entirely sure why she felt the need to ask the question in the first place. “So one bomber kills himself and another runs, is that on purpose or did the second bomber just not have time to get away?”

“I think he didn’t have time to get away,” Derek says with a shrug. “We know most bombers are cowards and this doesn’t exactly fall into the prefix of a political bombing.”

“Are we sure about that?” Prentiss asks with her eyebrows furrowed. “I mean it was at a rally to protest the existence of a confederate statue, which seems like an awfully political motive to me especially if they’re white supremacist looking to place blame on other marginalized groups.”

“I don’t know, Prentiss,” Morgan says with a shrug. “There are so many variables to this.”

“Yeah,” the raven-headed woman nods, then another thought crosses her mind and she shifts her eyes back to her dark friend. “Do you have the second letter that the unsub sent to the Post?”

“Look, Emily, you are seriously injured and I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” Derek protests.

“And you have the file right there and I have nothing better to do,” she says references the manila folder that graced the table next to Morgan’s chair as he looks over and sighs. She outstretches her hand in a demanding way. “So hand it over.”

Morgan really hated when his friend was like this, right and commandeering but he reluctantly hands over the file anyway. As she opens the file to start proceeding, he unintentionally starts to profile her. He can tell by the slight twitch of her mouth, not quite a wince that she’s discovered the fact that they were also profiling her as part of victimology of the unsub.

“So three of the victims were white, two black and more police officers and-” she hesitates before she says it, her eyes shooting to Derek and then back down to the folder before continuing. “And agents were injured in the first blast, seems that their potential targeting for intended victims didn’t work out very well.”

“Or it worked out perfectly because they intended on sending the letter to make us believe that they were Muslim,” Morgan hypothesizes. He reaches over for the now cold coffee set beside him and takes a sip as he sees the female agent nod her head in contemplation.

He sees her pulls out the copy of the second letter and starts to read rapidly. Sometimes he’s convinced that Emily Prentiss rivaled Reid in intelligence, just of a different sort. She was both street and book smart, the perfect combination needed in their line of work. Honestly, Prentiss was one of the best damn agents he had ever met, not entirely by the book but just enough to slide by in eyes of the law. Her arrests were always clean and this woman would be damned if she didn’t seek justice. He just hopes that in the future she would be able to return to the unit, return to her family where she belonged.

“Well, this guy is definitely a white supremacist,” Emily groaned at the horrifying text that lies before her eyes. “Although they claim to be of Islam, they’re rhetoric doesn’t read the way that a typical Muslim's would, I don’t understand how Reid missed this.”

“Well, when emotions are at play even geniuses can be blinded,” Morgan states simply. Emily looks confused, shaking her head. “We all saw you before you got in that ambulance, Emily.”

“Right,” she nods haphazardly, not giving much thought to what Derek was insinuating before reading back over the letter again. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this guy was Jewish.”

Morgan furrows his brows at the brunette’s inference, very confused by what she meant cause Jewish and white supremacy were two things that generally didn’t match up. “What do you mean?”

“Look at how many times he references Israel, ‘Israel is not the home of the Jewish people,’ ‘the true Jews were born and bred with no home if not for interference of the infidel,’” Emily theorizes as she reads from the letter. “It almost reads Biblical, and except for the use of the word ‘infidel’, it’s most certainly not that of a Muslim.”

“You don’t think that’s in response to the treatment of Palestine as it relates to Muslims?” Derek questions with a shake of his head.

Emily looks at him incredulously, shaking her head, “Not in the context that we know the unsubs to be white and supremacists because whoever wrote this letter is not as level-headed as whoever wrote the first letter that was sent to us.”

“So the partner that died in the bombing wrote the first letter?” Morgan nods, he seems to understand that much. The letters did seem to have their subtle differences.

“Yes, I mean it’s similar but whoever wrote this letter seems to leak his own beliefs through more than whoever authored the last,” the dark-haired woman summarizes. “He seems to have deep-seeded hate for Israel and the Jews but not because he’s a Muslim.”

Suddenly Prentiss is hissing in pain as a sharp sting shoots through the stump that remains of her leg and she grits her teeth, her head falling back hard against the pillow. She reaches out and grabs a hold of it.

“Prentiss, Prentiss?” Derek asks quickly, standing in alarm at the sight of his friend in what seems to be immense pain. “You need something?”

“No, no, it’s normal,” Emily breathes through the pain and the sweat as it starts to pool at her forehead again, still rubbing at the shooting ache. “It’s normal apparently.”

“That don’t look normal to me,” Morgan offers with concern.

As Emily tries to keep her breath and face neutral, JJ and Spencer enter the sliding glass door to her room with coffee, smiles, clearly joking around and the brunette has never been more grateful to see that lighthearted look on her wife’s face. That’s when JJ spots Morgan at her wife’s side, her eyes growing wide with worry as she sees the same pained expression from the previous night. She quickly makes her way to the brunette’s side.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?” JJ asks quickly, needing answers fast cause if something happened to her wife while she was out of the room, she’d never forgive herself. Hell, she was having a hard enough time with that already. “Do you want me to get the nurse?”

“It’s just more of the same, babe,” Emily says with a shake of her head and a sigh, trying her best to ignore the ache in her leg. The blonde looks from Morgan to the bed and spots the folder open on the sheets and she sighs frustrated.

“Why do you have the case file?” she shoots a warning glare towards Morgan and a lifted brow towards her wife as she crosses her arms over her chest. “We’re you seriously trying to work this case?”

“Look, she was just helping me clear up some of my frustration about the case and she did,” Morgan tries to pacify the very pissed off looking blonde. “She even looked over the last letter and gave some insights we weren’t able to catch, nothing strenuous.”

“Then why the hell did I walk in on her looking like she was in some serious pain?” JJ directs this towards Morgan but honestly all of the patrons in the room knew that it really wasn’t aimed anywhere. The blonde was tired and irritated and still coming to grips with what had happened to her wife. “It looked pretty damn strenuous to me, Morgan!”

“Maybe that’s because I just got my leg blown off, Jay,” Emily deadpans and looks at her wife seriously. JJ looks back incredulously, large blue eyes boring into brown in a standoff and the brunette wasn’t about to lose. “I just had my leg blown off and it’s not Morgan’s fault or Reid’s or yours, it’s just what happened and it’s pretty painful.”

“Hey Reid,” Derek turns towards the scrawny young man, picking up the file off the sheets and gesturing with it. “You want to help me go over some of these new theories, we got?”

“Oh, um, yeah, of course,” Reid says with a nod, he had sunk into the corner of the room with JJ’s anger and honestly he hadn’t quite felt comfortable enough to approach Emily just yet. He needed more time, more than the rest of the unit and they were keen in giving it to him.

As Morgan and Reid toss a nod towards the women, exiting the room, neither woman takes their eyes off the other. The room thick with the tension and neither knew where the knife was to cut through it so they stared, they stared in pain and anger and disbelief and grief and JJ knew that her dam was about to break. She just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon.


	10. only to squander in the light of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was so... difficult that i'm honestly not even sure i like it but it settles some things and sets some stuff up so i guess it needed to be a thing. it just irritated me to write and so as much as you guys probably won't like this, i probably like it even less. trust me.
> 
> anyway, i own diddly squat and i'm the lonely editor so pardon.

“Jennifer, what the hell was that?” Emily asked calmly, breaking the incredibly tense air between herself and her wife, knowing that the younger agent wouldn’t usually blow up like that if she didn’t have a reason. She knew her wife had a temper but it rarely showed itself in such a way unless pushed beyond limits. Emily didn’t want to believe that the woman was already beyond limits when they still had so far to go in this process.

JJ looks away from her wife and shakes her head. Her teeth tugging at her bottom lip as her head defiantly shakes in refusal. Refusal of what, she’s not entirely sure. Refusal of truth, refusal of acceptance, refusal of the fact that her wife was hurt and that if she had done anything, anything at all then just maybe this wouldn’t have happened. The blonde realizes she’s probably being ridiculous but can’t find it in her to care. Maybe this is the denial stage, she theorizes.

“You cannot work this case, Em,” JJ demands evenly despite the raging she felt inside of herself.

Emily sighs, “I wasn’t working the case, I was just giving Morgan a few insights that they overlooked in the second letter.”

“And that’s not working the case?” the blonde asked indignantly with her arms outstretched. “You shouldn’t have come within ten feet of that case file.”

“I’m not suddenly a fucking invalid, JJ,” Emily says a little heatedly. “My mind works just fine, thanks.”

“They have you so doped up, I’m surprised you can even see straight,” JJ fires back without even a thought. “You shouldn’t work the case while you’re under the influence like that.”

“And Morgan and Reid are not under any influences that I’m aware of so I respect them enough to tell me if I’m way off,” the brunette easily counters. “So that’s not it, what is it really?”

The blonde honestly did not want to get into all that she felt bubbling to the surface right now, between the anxiety, the fear and her own guilt. There was so much to say but nothing that would help the situation any in the slightest. She knew if anything it would only hurt the matters at hand and hurt her wife further.

“Come on, just yesterday you were the one telling me how selfish it was to leave the guys to work this case alone,” Emily offers and she knows it’s probably a low blow but honestly, her wife was shutting down on her and she needed to get a rise out of her if that’s what it took.

“When I said that yesterday, your leg wasn’t blown off as you so delicately put it,” JJ snaps, her eyes fire as they bore into her lover’s. JJ sees the wince that Emily gives at the harshness of her words.

“JJ, I’m the only one who got any kind of look at the bomber so I know I’m the best lead they have right now to catch this guy,” the older woman affirms. “And you know that too so let’s not pretend that that’s what this is really about.”

“This is not a discussion, Em,” the blonde says through gritted teeth. Suddenly the brunette wonders when the former liaison got so damn good at failing to communicate.

JJ shakes her head defiantly again and Emily is sometimes convinced that she’s the worst thing that ever happened to Jennifer Jareau. This is one of those moments. She remembers a time when the blonde-haired woman was still almost innocent, when she was still just the media liaison and not a profiler, before the realities of the job had begun to sink in. She thinks that JJ might have turned out differently had Emily never joined the unit. She’s almost convinced that over time the younger woman had learned and adapted to the Prentiss way of coping and that’s not always a good thing especially for someone with as big of a heart as JJ.

She was no longer that fresh-faced agent who had never had to fire her weapon in the line of duty and she no longer inquired how the raven-haired woman never let this get to her, how she never even blinked cause now, for the most part, JJ doesn’t blink either. The blonde agent has seen so much death, she has even incited death. Her wife now had the nerve to kill people and never so much as question it. JJ was now truly a Prentiss, Emily thinks. She’s learned to compartmentalize with the best of them. And it felt damn near tragic to the older woman now.

As for JJ, her own thoughts were scattered and her nerves were on end but she really didn’t know how she was managing to hold up this well under the scrutiny and interrogation of Emily Prentiss. Her wife’s face was searching now, eyes narrowing in deep thought before she seems to come to some sort of pained resolution. JJ can see it in her eyes now; the fight is out in those brown irises. She gives in easily and JJ wonders when that changed because it’s been far too easy to win recently.

“Okay, Jennifer,” Emily finally sighs. “But you’re honestly telling me that you’re not working this case either right now, after all that has happened?”

The blonde seriously can’t believe the older agent has to even ask the question as she scoffs, “Emily, all that has happened is the reason I can’t work this case and I honestly didn’t even know how many victims there were until you asked Hotch last night.”

“How can you not work this case, JJ?” the dark-headed woman asked in disbelief.

“I can’t work this case because I don’t know how to be objective right now, Em,” JJ sighs. “I can hardly keep my thoughts in a straight line, let alone focus on the unsub’s because everything’s being thrown at me between the kids at home and this, I can’t.”

“What’s wrong with the kids?” Emily inquires with a furrow of her brow, concern lacing her features. “Is something going on?”

“No, no, they’re fine, it’s just,” JJ halts herself to sigh, a hand going over her face. “Will called while I was out with Reid and the boys are asking where we are because they knew the case was local, Henry saw some of the news covering the bomb and he heard a federal agent was injured, he’s asking questions cause he’s too smart for his own good.”

The brunette simply nods her head, her eyes avoiding contact with her wife’s now and just like that the walls go up. JJ can’t read all that’s in her eyes but she doesn’t have to, she already knows that her partner is trying to reason how to tell the boys what had happened, how they’ll know immediately if they were to see her and how they’ll react to the news.

She knows because she had traveled down this road of curiosity as well while she lay awake unable to sleep after her wife awoke last night. She wonders if either boy will be scared. It seems like an odd thing to think that a child could suddenly be scared of their stepmom who they’ve known their entire lives but when that mom has suddenly lost a piece of herself then she could be misconstrued as almost an entirely different person in the mind of a child. Change doesn’t come easy for the kids, she knows.

“You should go home, Jay,” the older woman suddenly blurts as her head snaps up and meets her wife’s eyes in resolution. JJ looks at her as if she’s gone mad.

“What? If you think I’m leaving then you’re crazy,” JJ scoffs in disbelief, her hands going to her hips in a defensive posture. “It’s nearly a two hour drive back home and I’m not going to leave you for that-”

Emily just holds her hand up before the blonde could protest any further. “Go home, take a shower, get some stuff together and spend time with the kids before they come up here tomorrow,” she says while looking her wife in the eye and the blonde easily spots what her wife meant by the statement. Go home and prepare them essentially. “Besides the team is nearby if I need them and if I know Garcia then she’ll probably be back here at the hospital anytime now so I’ll be fine.”

“Em, are you sure you want me to tell them?” the younger agent asked skeptically.

“JJ, we both know the boys are going to need some time to process this before they actually see me here, Roz won’t even know the difference but Henry and Michael...” the dark-haired agent trails off softly. “They don’t need the news broken to them by suddenly seeing… well, this.”

Emily references what’s left of her right leg, both of their eyes meeting the remainder of her knee and both feeling a little more uneasy. JJ just nods, still staring off slightly as her thumbnail goes to worry between her teeth as a sudden anxiousness arises in her.

“Besides it’s still early so you can be back before it’s dark,” Emily concludes her justifications but JJ didn’t need any more reasons because she knew the older woman was right.

“Okay, just please call me if you need anything or anything at all happens,” JJ asks with a raise of her eyebrows, her right peaking just above her left. This is how her wife knew she was incredibly serious in her demand and that this was not a request. Emily nods in agreement. “And why do you think Penelope-”

Suddenly there’s a knock on the sliding glass door that’s closed and as JJ looks back over her shoulder to see the bubbly blonde there, she looks back at her wife incredulously and it’s Emily’s turn to raise an eyebrow at her wife. She chuckles and shrugs as she resolves, “She can't resist my feminine wiles.”

JJ rolls her eyes at the ridiculous joke but she also knew it was the truth when it came to herself. She goes to slide the door open and let’s Garcia in. The woman in a bright pink polka dotted dress enters the room with her laptop bag slung over her shoulder and her hands full of what looks to be a big square bakery box.

“Hi, I brought donuts,” Penelope sings as she sets the box down on a table near the brunette’s bedside before she looks between her two friends and favorite couple and suspects that she might be intruding on something. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, no, we were just talking,” JJ shakes her head with a sigh.

Garcia claps her hands together and opens the box to reveal the dozen assorted donuts. Pulling one out, placing it on a napkin and begins to hand it to the injured woman before pausing in her motions, her eyes going to the other blonde in the room who looks at her curiously. Garcia inquires, “She can have a donut, can’t she?”

“Of course I can, Garcia!” Prentiss suddenly protests with a hint of offence in her voice.

“If she wants one she can have one, the doctor’s didn’t put her on any food restrictions,” JJ relays the more imperative information before letting humor slide into her voice. “Besides I’m not her mother.”

“Uh, are you sure?” Penelope says skeptically, the doubt read in the uncertain look on her face but hands the donut over to the brunette anyway. “Cause you’re kind of just like the whole team’s resident momma bear!”

JJ scoffs for what feels like the millionth time that day but this time with a lighter tone, “No, I am not!”

“Uh, yeah,” Emily says with her mouth full of the sweet treat, treading frivolously in her agreement with the tech analyst. “You kind of are, babe.”

“You even chastise Reid when he’s eating too much cheese cause you know he’s lactose intolerant,” Garcia informs her with a laugh.

“Yeah, well, the boy’s a genius and should know better,” the blonde agent says with a roll of her eyes. “Besides if I was her mother it would be really awkward when I do things like this then.”

The younger woman walks over to the left side of her wife’s bed and leans over, landing a lingering kiss on the brunette’s lips who happily meets her wife’s affection. Garcia just smiles goofily at the sight before her. As they finally break from the kiss, Prentiss says dopily, “Can’t argue with that logic.”

“Alright, well, I’ll be back, okay?” JJ says before turning and staring her wife in the eyes, her index finger accusingly aimed for the older woman. “Don’t forget what you promised.”

Emily just salutes and Garcia looks between them in confusion, “Hey, no, where are you going, Jay?”

“I have a few things to take care of that Emily and I were just talking about and I’m going to see the kids,” JJ informs her friend with a smile. “So keep an eye on her and I’ll be back later this afternoon.”

“I’ll guard and protect her as if she was my own,” Penelope says seriously with a nod, her palms pressed together in front of her.

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to the idea,” JJ quips and with one look towards her wife that speaks things that neither woman has to say aloud like ‘I love you,’ ‘be safe’ and ‘see you soon.’ Seeing her wife return the gaze was enough for JJ and soon enough, she was sliding out of the glass door to face a whole new challenge ahead of her.


	11. the past that leaves you standing still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter comes with a companion playlist if you feel like wrecking yourself with feels and angst for a couple of hours: https://8tracks.com/emeryazure/prior-to-prentiss
> 
> i'm at home sick so i guess it worked out for you guys to get a new chapter. okay, this chapter builds more of the backstory that brought them where they are now... here we go...
> 
> i own absolutely nothing. i'm the only editor. you know the drill.

JJ was grateful that they had driven their own SUV to the rally and that the team was gracious enough to have dropped it off at the hospital. As she climbed into the vehicle, she discovers that Emily’s personal iPhone was still connected to the dashboard as they both had encrypted phones provided by the Bureau for sensitive cases like the one the team is working. She sighs at the thought that her wife doesn’t have her personal phone but was grateful she at least had Garcia who was like a living communications device with her in the hospital.

The blonde decides that she certainly couldn’t be alone with her thoughts for the entirety of the two hour drive and she knew the brunette definitely has the better music selection downloaded to her phone as Emily literally could not function to work out without her music.

She unlocks the phone with the passcode which she already knew to be their wedding anniversary. Sometimes her wife was secretly such a sap. She starts to scroll through the playlists and she rolls her eyes at the intensity of some of them that were wide-ranging from rap to metal to, of course Emily’s favorite, obscure 80s pop. Her ears certainly couldn’t handle that onslaught at the moment as the ringing had nearly ceased but now left a slight echo to almost every noise she heard, like the sound was rattling off the insides of her head. Did her wife even listen to any music that was slightly calming?

A playlist titled ‘double J’ certainly caught her attention for obvious reasons, without looking at the songs in particular and just checking the artists, she’s happy to have found a playlist that seemed to meet more with her mood and state at the moment. She wonders slightly if Emily has this playlist made for moments just like this, at times when she needed to appease the blonde. JJ laughs and shakes her head slightly at the thought.

By the time that she had hit the highway and “Better Man” by Pearl Jam graces the radio, JJ immediately knows what this playlist is. It was quite literally a catalog of all the hurt that the blonde had inflicted on her wife before they we’re even together, officially anyway. The playlist is sending her back in time to all the mistakes she had made with Emily. There were days when she wondered how it had gotten so screwed up.

How she had naively gone after Will believing she could ever be happy when who she really loved was only shoving her at the man. JJ and Garcia had known Emily was gay from the night that she brought Brad the FBI agent over to the table as she had gotten a little too drunk and let it slip. The blonde never really understood the brunette’s reasons for keeping up appearances all those years ago by going out with several guys that she would never follow up with and shrug off when inquired what happened. Sure, her mother had expectations but that was never any reason to ever hide to who she was. She knows that is hypocritical on her part however. After a while though, that stopped and Emily was hardly pretending anymore. It didn’t need to be said to be understood.

She remembers how it had taken her until the point of getting transferred out of the BAU, when she was faced with being sent into a warzone that she was finally able to act on feelings that she had harbored for five years. Feelings that the older woman had compartmentalized herself because she was convinced JJ was entirely straight and happy with Will. And JJ wasn’t unhappy, just very complacent and life was not full of the passionate kind of love that she stupidly felt every time she walked into the BAU and saw Emily at her desk, goofing off with the boys or every time they embraced and every time that they never failed to be the other’s support system. Even the brunette being thoughtful enough to bring her coffee was enough to make her weak.

It had taken a war to summon the courage inside of herself to lie, lie like she had never lied before. Lie to the point that she never thought she was capable of doing. She had told Will that Emily and Garcia were throwing a girl’s sleepover due to the fact that she would be away for a while. There was no event or sleepover. She instead had driven to Emily’s apartment, go-bag in hand. She had nearly knocked down the older agent’s door with the intensity of her knuckles rasping the metal.

When Emily had opened the door shocked to see the blonde, JJ made her way in and with the simple words ‘I can’t stand it anymore’, JJ kissed her future wife for all she was worth to her. Gambling everything from a work down to their best friend relationship to her marriage but she had gone all-in, betting blind on a solid hand without even realizing it. And Emily had proved it to her that night, letting the chips fall as they may. But that was not to be their happily ever after however.

JJ did indeed go to Afghanistan, she had indeed gotten pregnant by her boyfriend again and she had indeed carried on much like nothing at all had transpired. She had quickly fallen into a warped sense of reality. Then Doyle happened, everyone knows. And they had ended up in Paris together for a short while and it felt like heaven on Earth for those few short days. They had communicated through secrets whispered with the hours of difference and continents distance. Then it had all come rushing back, that brutal reality when the brunette returned. How many years had come and passed now, how many events like losing the baby and then marrying Will on a whim when Henry had nearly lost his father to a separate bomb scare.

In hurt and anger and dissatisfaction with not only the blonde's choices but also her own, Emily had left for London for a couple of years and JJ was lost in the mundane of everyday life. She had just returned from maternity leave when the brunette had suddenly returned again for the second time. Something had happened in London; Emily had lost a female agent. JJ now knows who that agent was to the older woman, a no strings attached lover. Having her second son and something about starting to raise another little boy in this life of a lie that she led while the older woman was present for it all had come to make her skin crawl.

She had fruitlessly tried to fall back into the dangerous game that her and Emily had once shared but the former Interpol agent was not having it this time. She would not be used any longer and JJ could not blame her one bit. That’s when JJ was really forced to face what she had done, what hole she had buried herself in without really realizing it. She couldn’t even remember the last time she enjoyed being with Will. There was hardly ever anything there anymore, if there ever was. She was ultimately playing house in a very real game that she knows she let go too far. It was time to choose the life she really wanted.

That’s when she came clean to Will, when she left him and he had fallen into some sort of depression that he still to this day found himself in. He had simply accepted the fact that JJ had cheated on him, so often and for so long without even so much as raising his voice. He had mumbled a lot about how it hurt but that he understood that he was not what she wanted. JJ had felt guilt over cheating on him even without all his moping but she never once has regretted leaving. No matter how difficult it’s been.

And it had been difficult. The adjustment of the divorce with Henry had been particularly hard as he didn’t exactly understand how things could change so quickly when he had never even seen the signs. But you can’t read signs that had been ignored and passed so long ago. JJ and Emily eventually found their rhythm as a family and JJ would be lying if she said she wasn’t completely shocked at how patient the older woman was when it came to the blonde boys. JJ always knew that she would make a good mother and told her that often but believing and witnessing it were two different things. It had made her fall all the more in love with the woman who became her life. A year after the divorce, a year after they had finally gotten together they made it official and married.

Another obstacle had come in the fact that they wanted a child together but neither was getting any younger. JJ was the obvious choice to carry the child given her age and experience but she wanted to give Emily a child of her own and she was determined to do just that. It had been a challenging process to get pregnant and they had run into many hitches along the way but within a few months of being married, JJ was finally pregnant and the joy was palpable.

With Rosalyn’s arrival however, things had changed. If it had been difficult and trying before, this was damn near a fork in the road. Both women were stubborn, that much was known and the job began to interfere more than either had anticipated. Hotch was demanding more time of Emily as it seemed he was grooming her to be his eventual replacement seeing as Morgan had decided to step back from his responsibilities as second-in-command to focus, ironically enough, on being a father.

As JJ’s maternity leave came to an end, their challenge spun out into pure chaos. They soon realized raising three kids who were at varying stages while holding full-time jobs that often demanded substantial overtime and took them away from home so often was close to impossible. Emily had begun to withdraw as they leaned not only on Garcia but also Will to help manage the disorder. This was always where she knew that her wife tended to struggle, with control. Both in letting go and attempting to over-manage every aspect of their lives when most of the time it just wasn’t possible.

JJ had tried to be patient but her wife was only slipping farther and farther away until it had come to a head the other night. She knew her wife was serious when she mentioned JJ stepping away from the job but she also knew why that was. The blonde knew Emily’s need to control was overwhelming her and she was offering the only possible thing that she saw calming the storm of having a growing kid, toddler and an infant all at the same time.

She realizes she was halfway home now as she had gotten lost in her thoughts, lost in the guilt that she felt came to comprise all she did these days. She had made some mistakes and she’s not entirely sure if she’s ever forgiven herself. So when “Purple Rain” by Prince graces her ears, the tears that had become foreign after last night since she hadn’t allowed herself anymore grief, come fledgling back. This was one of Emily’s favorite songs and she had never understood, maybe never let herself understand but now under the guise of all that has come and gone she gets it now. She lets herself feel it.

JJ continues this thought process much of the rest of the drive. She knew that now that Emily was in the hospital, seriously injured that their problems wouldn’t just go away but instead would return with a vengeance. Neither would be working for the foreseeable future and that would only ramp up the chaos to a certain extent. Emily had a long road of recovery ahead but they still have three kids that fall in the middle of it all. She realizes that she had certainly let her kids take priority over her own marriage. She wonders how she let herself fall into the same trap that she essentially had with Will… maybe it had never been the fact of whether it was Will or Emily at all. Maybe it had always been only herself.

The blonde knew without a doubt that she was happier with the brunette woman by far but that hadn’t stopped her incessant circle of faults. It hadn’t broken the chain that JJ feels is nearly endless now. This is Einstein’s theory of insanity, isn’t it? It was the same thing over and over while expecting different results. That’s probably the kind of advice Reid would attempt to offer her anyway. She realizes she will have to change something about the way she approaches all of this very soon, or the connection would more than likely break entirely and she’d bend over backwards, hell, break herself before she ever let that happen.

JJ is exiting off of I-66 East as “Crazy” by Aerosmith escapes the speakers of the vehicle and she just shakes her head at her wife’s choice in song but by the chorus she is nearly shouting the lyrics in the car with abandon. It has tears falling harder than earlier but she feels all the anxiety, the guilt departing her bones if only for the moment as she leaves her dark thoughts to the road.

Before she even realizes it, she’s pulling up to their two-story home in the suburban area of D.C. And suddenly, she’s more nervous than anxious. The task directly in front of her is not something she had clearly allowed herself to think about. How would she talk to the kids? Could she even stomach to deal with Will and his constant presence in her life right now?

It’s bad but sometimes she nearly wishes that her ex had actually gotten angry over her infidelity, that he had decided to fight and kick and scream and then maybe this wouldn’t be so hard now. Maybe he just wouldn’t always be there, like a constant tick in the back of her skull sucking the life out her with the guilt and shame he laces within her.

The only reason she never regrets being with Will at all was the fact that she got her two loving, caring and adorable blonde boys and the rest was truly in the wind. But these two little boys and her daughter that she was somehow about to have to break the hard news to were all that mattered. With these thoughts, JJ braces herself as she open the door of the SUV to face the issues head-on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact is that this title is partially taken from something else entirely that i wrote and the line originally reads, "but he finds that fear leaves you standing still in either direction" therefore i ripped it cause i thought it fit the story and this chapter pretty well. anyway, no one cares. until next time...


	12. as wallowing solves no insurrections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa: if you don't like my characterizations thus far, just please do not continue reading. don't leave unconstructive comments. it's a story. it's fanfic. it ain't that serious, folks.
> 
> alright, alright, alright. we're getting there. we're gonna start heading into some serious action after the next few chapters coming up so be prepared. sorry btw, life has been hellish and i hated the first draft of this chapter. i rewrote it and at least like it a little more now even though it's a bit short. thanks for all the hits, you guys are great!
> 
> i own nothing. this is so badly and quickly single-handedly edited. idk.

Emily was basking in the feeling of the drugs that another nurse had just administered which was easing the pain in her leg for now. Her mind however was restless as she really hadn’t had a minute alone since all this had begun, since that bomb had gone off. Now was no different as she glanced at Garcia sitting in the chair in the corner, in her own little world on her laptop, probably digging for the team.

Her mind is constantly on JJ now though. She wonders if the blonde was coping with everything going on, from their conversation earlier it definitely didn’t seem like she was. They had been on pins and needles for months now with her diving headfirst into her responsibilities of being second-in-command of the unit and she felt herself damn near scrambling to gain control of her home life, being both a wife and a mother. It felt like a lot, sometimes too much.

That was not gonna be an issue now, she’s sure that she might not ever be able to work for the Bureau again. This is a thought that makes her scowl, her breath picking up as a sudden anxiety races through her veins. Emily wasn’t even sure who she was without the job. It had been the one constant in a stream of variables in her life.

This was certainly going to change everything now, she’s sure.

“Hey, you’ve been kind of quiet over there but I can practically hear your mind whirling cause it’s even louder than my baby over here,” Garcia speaks up and then gestures to the laptop placed in front of her. “What’s on your mind, sugarplum?”

Prentiss chuckles briefly at her friend but shakes her head, unable to form a thought that could compile all that was happening inside to herself at that moment. So she simply asks, “How’s JJ handling all of this? Is she really alright?”

Garcia seems a little thrown off by the question and quirks an eyebrow, “You mean you haven’t even asked her yourself?”

“Well, let’s say she’s been a little more focused on what’s going on with me and how the kids will take everything to even worry about herself right now,” Emily offers like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“I’m gonna ask an incredibly personal question and coming from me that shouldn’t really be all that surprising but from what I walked in on earlier with how tense it was, I mean I passed by Morgan and Reid earlier and they warned me about coming in here but,” Penelope cuts off her rant to clear her thoughts and get to the point. “This all leads me to believe that you and JJ aren’t doing so great right now, are you?”

“No, we’re not really,” the brunette sighs in a quiet confession. “I mean, before all this happened we were having a hard time and now nothing’s really okay, I guess.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry to hear that but you’re Prentiss and JJ, you guys have defied all the odds since you first met,” Garcia graces the older woman with her slightly idealized fantasy, that’s how Prentiss sees it anyway. She and JJ had fallen apart so often, more often than anyone on the team knew that it almost seemed normal and now harsh to crush this woman’s idyll of them. “May I ask what’s going on?”

“You know how I am, Garcia, work is my life and sometimes I let that overshadow my priorities,” Emily admits hesitantly. “Up until three years ago, it was just me and that’s all I had and then suddenly I have three kids and a wife and there are still somedays, especially now that I don’t know how to do this, Pen.”

“But I’ve seen you with those kids and JJ, Em, you’re a great wife and mother,” Garcia protests as it was true, she had been at the birthday parties and even spent Christmases with the Prentiss family. She had always wondered how they made it work but it always seems to just fit. “Sure, you’re absolutely dedicated to your work but that’s how you’ve always been and JJ’s the same way.”

Emily cuts her eyes to her friend in an ‘are you serious’ way that has Garcia confused. So she elaborates on her thoughts, “JJ is not the same way that I am about work like now, she’s completely dropped everything to be here for me and the kids and I don’t know that I have that kind of selflessness.”

“What do you mean, princess?” Garcia asks as her brows furrow. “If the roles were reversed and it was JJ in that hospital bed, I know you’d be doing anything you could to help her.”

“No, I’d be working this case until it almost killed me,” the brunette counters. “I’d work this case in an attempt at revenge on the person that nearly killed my wife and I don’t know if those would be the right priorities or not.”

The blonde seems lost in thought for moment, nodding her head at all Emily had just revealed before she shrugs her shoulders, “You and JJ are just wired a little differently, honey, you protect your family by keeping them safe at all costs and JJ, she needs to keep her family sane, if that makes any sense?”

It does make sense to Emily as she nods her head thinking about that for a moment. JJ did indeed try her best every day to keep her little family sane despite all the anarchy that seemed to ensue within it. JJ had never tried to control the things that she knew she couldn’t. The blonde profiler couldn’t control the fact that their jobs took them away from their children but she could make it up to them by calling and reading them a story at night, taking them out for a day at the park once she got home. That’s where she and JJ truly differed in all honesty.

When Emily couldn’t control something, she would pull away and try her best to gravitate from that situation when she couldn’t deal with it. That probably was a trait inherited from her parents. Her mother was entirely blasé throughout her childhood and adolescence while her father had all but abandoned them. She wonders if she hadn’t let the Prentiss way of being takeover more than she realized since becoming a mother. She feels the sting of guilt rise up in her chest and all the way to her throat. How had she ever not let herself be there for her wife and kids when things were hard?

“Emily,” Garcia’s voice pulls the older woman from her darkening train of thought and as she looks up, Penelope can see the trace of tears lining those brown irises. “You know you can’t change what’s happened in the past, you can only change what happens in the future.”

_“You can't change the past, Em, so there's no sense in dwelling in it now,” JJ offers her best piece of advice in the situation. In this shoddy hotel room somewhere on the outskirts of Paris while they await news on Prentiss’ assumed identities. The blonde wasn’t feeling a sense of loss in all this, and it's strange in spite of all that has happened. Instead, she felt found. She felt like she had just liberated a damn country from it's oppressors._

_They sat so close that they could feel the other’s breath and the electricity bouncing off one another. Emily lying on top of the bed sheets and covers as she was still feeling the effects of Doyle’s wounds while JJ simply resided next to her sitting cross-legged and barefoot against the headboard and pillows._

_“Yeah, I just can’t help feeling like I let him win all over again because now he knows about Declan and he won’t stop until he finds him,” Emily murmurs solemnly, she was feeling nothing but loss at the moment. Her world had turned upside down at a moment’s notice and there was nothing she could do about it. She didn’t even know where to begin. It was amazing how the control had slipped away so easily as much as she had fought to retain every ounce of it._

_“You did everything within your power to stop him, we all did,” JJ sighs, looking down at the woman beside her briefly. “And if I know the team then right about now they’re probably still looking for Doyle even with all the new cases that I’m sure have come in; they won’t stop, Em, you have to know that.”_

_“I guess I do but I just feel powerless,” the brunette admits and for her, it was a lot. It was damn near confessional really._

_“There’s no use in dwelling on things you can’t change right now,” JJ tries to reassure, not entirely meeting the other woman’s eyes. “So you need to stop living in the past and just move on from here.”_

_“You're probably right but how does a legally dead person move on exactly?” Emily quips as she raises an eyebrow and her head towards the blonde now._

_“You’re not dead to me,” JJ says seriously, her eyes cutting to look into the deep brown irises of her sometimes lover._

_“Are you sure about that?” the brunette dared to ask but shies away from meeting the younger woman face-to-face to inquire. “After all this, I don’t know that I’ll ever really live again.”_

_“Don’t talk like you’re actually dead, Em,” JJ says with a roll of her eyes at the older woman's dramatics. Another thing that Emily Prentiss was a master of. “You’re right here with me and everything is gonna be fine, it’ll work itself out.”_

_“You can’t actually believe that, can you?” Emily asks as she raises her head again to look up at her- at her what? Friend? Former co-worker? Her lover? Her leaver? What was JJ to her other than a person who could stare into the deepest depth and darkness of Emily Prentiss and not tremble away in fright?_

_JJ didn't say anything. She kept her lips locked like the secrets they kept. Maybe she already was like the blackbird that Emily had mentioned on their way there, maybe she already kept too many secrets hidden away. What the younger woman can't hide away, here so far from reality and their normal lives, was her curiosity. She found her hand foreignly reaching itself out to the other woman. Her fingers blindly find the older woman's bandage and softly palms over her abdomen beneath her long-sleeved shirt._

_“Can I?” it comes out of the blonde’s mouth in nearly a whisper, whispers of cowardice and fear- fear of what, Emily had no idea. She had never been able to deny JJ anything, not ever, not once. Now was no different. She simply nods her head in a positive manner to the vague and ambivalent question._

_JJ took her time as her hand just simply caressed in gentle and easy touches until it slides south. At the feel of JJ’s warm hand at her edges to beneath her shirt, Emily’s breath hitches, stolen away from her so easily and effortlessly, it felt damn near shameful as it always did. But it was a feeling that she so often delved into but didn’t dissect._

_She felt the hand descend upon her ivory skin so sensitive to touch that it burned and beamed, coming alive from its cold numbness. As the gray shirt rode, the ivory turned to nearly volatile bloodshot skin and while the stitches were gone, the angry flesh shouting of pain and agony that was descendant of the weeks past. It brings reality falling on both of them suddenly._

_Emily looks up, her eyes as wide and open and vulnerable as ever, and she knew JJ could read that. She may not be a damn profiler but this woman knew beyond all shadows of doubts. The brunette could never be the same. Though she had no clue that the blonde would so vehemently reach out for her, to caress her jaw so softly yet so firmly as the younger woman’s lips found her own. There was no hesitance felt or sensed now. It was just her and JJ melding. It’s what they did best. Folding in upon each other as the world collapsed around them. None of that even mattered in this second, in this moment everything disappeared._

“I really don’t know what’s going on with you and JJ but I think you need to talk about it or else it’s only gonna get worse with everything that’s happened,” Garcia seemed to conclude a long winded rant as Emily had entirely escaped into another time. The brunette just sighs.

That was another thing, confrontation. Confrontation was something Emily never had a problem with when she knew she was right but admitting she was wrong, that it was in fact her fault was not a natural thing for the brunette. She could go on lack of communication for a lifetime if she were able to, if she wouldn’t lose JJ but she knew what was at stake. She knew the high probability of her wife putting up with this from her was a long shot. But she had seen the fact that the blonde was just as happy to let it skirt pass them earlier that day as well. Was she willing to fix this too? Could it be fixed after all that’s happened?

“Hey now, snap out of it, princess,” the tech analyst calls over with a clap of her hands from her chair as the brunette had spaced out on her. “I will not allow you to get all self-wallowing on me because that is not the strong-willed and stubborn secret agent that I know.”

Emily just shakes her head, at a loss, “I don’t how to fix this, I don’t know how I’m gonna do anything when I’m stuck here and I can’t even walk, Garcia.”

“You will not let yourself think like that,” Garcia nearly demands. She hates seeing her friend like this, looking lost and hopeless like she saw no light at the end of the tunnel. “I will remind you of what I know to be true and what I told JJ yesterday, you can and will do anything for that wife and those beautiful little babies of yours, even if you have to crawl on your hands and knees to do it.”

The older woman smiles at the tech analyst’s conclusion, she was right but as she looked down briefly at what was left of herself and having to glance away just as quickly. She steels herself as she jokes, “Well, that’s good cause that might be all I’m able to do.”


	13. that band together in the force of fortitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a good mixture of angst and also lightens up a little by the end so i'm happy with it. yes, i know everyone hates Will but he's a reality and i'm not one to entirely ignore canon, alright? and henry and michael wouldn't exist so yeah... just stick with me here, folks. this chapter is kinda long but sorry, not sorry?
> 
> i am the only editor. i do not own or write for criminal minds but christ, sometimes i wish i could.

JJ entered her home with a quiet shakiness to her that she’s sure that no one would be able to pick up on but it just felt wrong coming home without her wife to either lead or follow her. But that thought was quickly interrupted when she entered the living area just off from the foyer where she found her two little boys playing with Roz on the rug of the room while she could hear Will in the kitchen.

“Mommy, you’re home!” the nine-year-old exclaims while getting up off the floor and making his way over to hug his blonde mother and is quickly followed by his three year old brother but he finds himself looking behind her for his other mom, he scrunches his eyebrows in confusion. JJ just ruffles his hair a little. “Hey, where’s momma?”

The blonde woman takes a deep breath and struggles to answer the relatively simple question and Henry is not ignorant to this as he watches her pick up Michael who had his arms outstretched towards her.

“Uh, she got held up with some things back in Charlottesville and that’s actually what I need to talk to you guys about in a little bit but why don’t you and Michael play a little longer while I take Roz and talk to your dad, alright?” she finally offers in hopes of appeasing her eldest son who she always knew was full of questions. She turns to the right to look at her youngest son in her arms. “Sound good?”

Henry gasps quietly to himself and freezes but JJ catches it however and turns her attention back to him. She sees what looks to be a terrified expression lacing his face, she furrows her eyebrows in confusion and worry, “What’s wrong, Henry?”

“Why do you have blood on your neck?” he asks and looks back at his mom before JJ instinctively went to rub her neck and did indeed find the remnants of Emily’s blood laced there on her hand. She cursed herself as she was sure she had gotten most of it off yesterday but had obviously not had enough time to shower. “Are you hurt? Is everyone okay?”

She kneels, setting Michael down who runs off to play with Roz for a moment while JJ looks her son square in the eye, taking his hands in hers to assure him, “Everyone is fine but something did happen and I really need to talk to your dad before we can talk about it, alright?”

Henry nods his head, a little beyond worried. She thinks he’s a lot like Reid and Emily sometimes as you could always tell when the wheels of his mind were spinning but JJ just squeezes his hand a little and then lets go. “Thank you, now go keep your brother entertained for a bit.”

JJ stands and walks over to where Michael was playing with the small brunette girl who was sitting up on her play mat. “Well, hello, pretty girl,” JJ says in a higher tone as she approached her daughter, picking her up. “How’s my girl doing today, huh?”

She kisses the nearly one year old’s head and holds her closer to her, needing this momentarily, to hold onto one of her kids and not let go. She knew if she had tried that with either boy they’d either squirm or start asking more questions. JJ sighs as she walks towards the kitchen and finds Will preparing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“Hey, chére, I heard you come in but thought I’d give you time with the boys,” Will says with a light smile, ruffling the beard that graced his aging face. “I was just making the boys an early lunch but I can make you something, you hungry?”

“No, thank you, I had a big breakfast this morning,” she says, a fake smile plastering her face before it falls and she looks back at her little girl, petting the dark hair with her unbloodied right hand.

“How are you doing?” he asks concern lacing his voice now. “How’s Emily doing?”

“Oh, you know Em, as stubborn as ever,” JJ says with slightly wide eyes. “You know when I got back from breakfast she was actually reviewing the case with Morgan?”

Will looks as if he’s about to laugh but holds back and simply shrugs, “Well, is that so surprising? I mean, it sounds like the same old Emily to me, that woman will work til she drops dead... again.”

“That’s not funny,” JJ says cutting her eyes at her ex-husband who just holds up his hands in surrender. “She shouldn’t be anywhere near that case right now.”

“How is that going?” the man asks tentatively. “They anywhere near catching the bastards?”

“The partner died in the second bomb blast but we don’t know who he is yet,” the blonde offers with a shake of her head, a little frustrated at the notion. “Emily actually helped Derek develop a theory that their working on now but I don’t know what it is.”

Will watches as his ex-wife rolls her eyes a little, he shakes his head and quirks an eyebrow, “You know if this had been any other case, you’d have been proud of her for that.”

“Yeah but this isn’t any other case, Will,” JJ states shortly but peeking in volume as she hadn't exactly grown accustomed to the ringing in her ears just yet. “This was the case that damn near-”

JJ cuts herself off as she notices how loudly she was speaking, knowing that the boys in the other room would’ve known what they were talking about and was not quite ready to reveal the news yet.

“Yeah, you’re right, I get it,” he says with a shrug. “But honestly, I think it’s a good thing, she can’t be in a good place right now mentally so it’s probably best that she has some kind of distraction.”

The agent looks over at the man slightly alarmed but nods her head. She hadn’t really thought about it that way. Was Emily in a bad way mentally? Neither one had really dug much deeper than surface of the other as the shock and awe of the event was still rather new and sinking in. But she added it to the already long mental list she was compiling that needed to be dealt with.

“So Henry’s definitely asking questions,” she says in a lower tone to try and make sure to not alert the boy at the use of his name.

“Yeah, he already ask you?” Will nods his head as he inquires.

“He asked where Emily was and then he saw a little blood I still had on me from yesterday that I thought I had cleaned off,” the blonde explains with a sigh. “So how are we gonna do this?”

Will looks serious as he completes the last sandwich and pieces the two slices of bread together. “Well, I’m gonna feed the boys and get your little girl something to eat while you take a shower.”

“You don’t have to do that,” JJ protests. “I can take care of Roz.”

“JJ, you’re taking care of these kids and Emily but who’s taking care of you?” Will asks rhetorically with a raised eyebrow. “Go take care of yourself for a minute, just relax, breathe and clean yourself up for god’s sake cause you look like shit.”

JJ scoffs at the man, sending a glare his way, “I hope you don’t talk that way in front of my sons.”

“Like Emily’s any better,” Will laughs slightly and JJ tilts her head considering what he said was true. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Jareau.”

JJ just rolls her eyes before walking over and handing over the little girl to her ex. She quietly makes her way up the stairs and into her and Emily’s shared room. The place feels like a ghost now. It’s obvious that it hadn’t been inhabited by her wife in a few days as her scent was wearing thin in the space. So she just makes her way into the ensuite bathroom and runs the hot water as high as it will go. As she steps into the shower and starts to cleanse her body of the wreckage, she sees the blood mixing with the water and she wishes it was the first time that she’s ever witnessed it but it had become a semi-normal occurrence in her line of work.

She’s surprised at just how much the warmth was dissipating her mind of all the worry, anxiety and the growing depression that had fallen on her shoulder and started setting in her bones. She feels herself relax and allows herself the simplicity of not thinking about anything in the moment. Focusing on ridding herself of all the dirt and grime and blood was healthily distracting her. It’s amazing what a clean body can do to clear a cluttered mind.

JJ finishes dressing by placing the baby blue sweater over her head and then putting some light touches of makeup to cover up the deepening gray circles under her eyes. She can’t help but feel that she’s aged five years in the last twenty-four hours. She sighs as she takes one last look at herself before packing up one of their spare go-bags with a few things that they’d need at the hospital seeing as they had packed light for the local trip. As she opens the sock drawer that she and her wife share, she quickly grabs a pair for herself but then stops still. She suddenly remembers that her wife, at this point, will only need one and not the pair. She shakes her head to rid herself of the thought and grabs a few pair anyway and closes the drawer.

The blonde finally descends down the stairs leaving the bag at the foot of them. She braces herself before entering back into the living area. As she does she sees that Henry was done eating and that Michael was still picking at the crust of the bread of his mostly devoured PB&J, Roz was munching on a few chips that she had been given on her mat before JJ slides in and scoops her up. She takes a seat next to Will on the couch.

“What are you eating, silly girl?” JJ asks lightly of her daughter who simply just cheeses at her mother with the partially chewed food in her mouth and it leaves the blonde laughing. “Okay, good enough for me.”

She looks over at the man who was giving her a serious look and she knew it was time. The moment she had been dreading since her and Emily had talked that morning. The feeling in her gut was telling her that this wasn’t going to be good. Will inquires in his southern accent, “You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’m ever gonna be, I guess,” she sighs and she looks towards the boys. Michael had abandoned his crust and was playing with some Legos while Henry was quietly drawing in his notepad. “Hey, guys, can you come over here? Your dad and I have something we need to talk to you about.”

Michael quickly walks over to the couch and sets on the foot rest in front of it, Henry is a little more hesitant in his action as he too had a bad feeling about this conversation. The last time his mom and dad needed to talk to him like this they were getting a divorce. So talking was never a good sign but he made his way next his brother regardless.

“Is this about where momma is and the blood and that bomb on TV?” Henry asks before JJ or Will could even begin to start the conversation. _Well, that’s one way to break the ice._ JJ sighs again, she hates that her kids have to be exposed to these kind of things.

“Yes, it is but I promise you momma is fine, everyone is fine but,” the blonde halts, not knowing how to ease into the conversation. “But you see, momma was hurt while we were working, do you understand?”

Henry’s eyes go a little wide at the revelation, he had seen the kind of hurt that his parents’ job could cause but Michael just scrunches his little face up and asks, “Momma has a booboo?”

“Yes, baby, momma has a booboo, a pretty big booboo,” JJ says in the softest tone she can manage trying to help the three year old understand but she saw the fear in Henry’s eyes as she turned her attention to him. “Look momma was hurt when the bomb went off at the park, I don’t know what you saw on the news and sometimes they can make it seem a lot worse than it is but one of her legs was hurt pretty bad, buddy.”

“Is she in the hospital, mommy?” Henry inquires, his big blue eyes staring into his mother’s own. She hates this, every second of it.

“Yeah, she’s gonna be there for a few days,” the agent says with a nod. “Henry, I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say; momma’s leg was hurt so bad that they couldn’t fix it so her leg, below her knee isn't there anymore, do you understand what I mean?”

“Like Anakin in Revenge of the Sith?” the boy furrows his brow and wonders aloud while JJ was left dumbfounded, she eventually bites back a smile at the comparison, this very real and serious situation all boiled down to a Star Wars movie in the eyes of her son.

“A little different than that but yeah, she’s missing her leg kind of like how Anakin was missing his arm and legs,” JJ relays with another nod. “And she’s not gonna be able to walk very well for a while but she’s still just momma, okay? She’ll be alright and we’re gonna be there to help her, aren’t we?”

Michael nods his head emphatically but JJ knows he doesn’t entirely understand before she looks at her eldest son again who looks a little lost, his eyes staring at the ground and if the blonde had to guess he was probably trying to picture it in his head.

“Henry, bud, we’re gonna help Emily get better, aren’t we?” Will finally speaks up to help his ex-wife.

The blonde boy finally nods his head too but when he looks up, JJ sees the scared and anxious look in his eye. She hands Roz to Will for a moment and grabs her son, pulling him into her arms. “It’s gonna be okay, buddy, I promise but it’s just gonna be a little different for a while, okay?”

“Is she gonna be able to go to work?” Henry questions, finally coming out of his trance slightly and pulls away from his mother’s grip.

“Not for a long while, bud,” JJ answers as best she could with all the unknowns. “She and I will both be home a lot more often for a while, we’re not gonna work.”

“Good cause I don’t want you to work,” Henry states simply and JJ furrows her brow. “You guys always get hurt and I hate when you get hurt.”

“I hate it too, Henry,” JJ says with a sigh, she realizes now that her son understood the job a little better than she thought he had. She knows now the stakes that are placed not just on herself and her wife but also for her sons and daughter too.

“When can we see momma?” Michael speaks up to ask, he may not understand entirely what was going on but he understood the fact that he wanted to see his mom as soon as possible.

“Well, I have to go back to the hospital tonight and help mom but your dad’s gonna stay with you another night,” the agent explains to her boys. “We were thinking that if momma is feeling up to it that maybe you guys could come visit her tomorrow, I know that would cheer her up.”

“Does this mean she’s gonna get a cool new leg like Luke and Anakin got new arms?” Henry inquires and the traces of a smile lace his features finally and JJ actually lets herself chuckle at the question.

“Maybe not quite that cool,” the blonde reveals with a smirk to her son. “But yes, she will probably get a prosthetic that will help her walk again.”

“Cool, mom’s gonna be like a Jedi,” he says with a full-fledged smile.

JJ just smirks at her son’s reasoning of the whole thing but she’s was willing to go with anything that helped him cope and deal with this difficult situation. She knew that once he saw her in the hospital that it would be a little different but they would cross that bridge tomorrow. “Hey now, I thought we were already cool like the Jedi by stopping all the bad guys?”

He shakes his head in refusal but the agent just tickles her son as he laughs until he finally gives in telling her that she was, in fact, cool like a Jedi. For the moment, the storm was calm and the conversation was light but she knew that she had to leave for the hospital again soon and all the weight, the guilt would come rushing back. The complication would not go away but for now she was happy to bask in the simplistic peace that her children brought to her.


	14. and hide in shadows of sorrow's solitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have to mention the latest episode of cm here real quick... um, i have a bittersweet relationship with the show but as long as they keep Emily and JJ, i'm there especially when there's scenes like in wednesday night's ep. this has been a psa, thanks.
> 
> i'm also glad everyone liked the last chapter! i love writing Henry tbh but i also love this chapter. Reid and Garcia are my favorite to write despite Emily and JJ being my babes so this was a lot of fun. not to mention, the last few have had their lighter moments so maybe i'm giving a bit of reprieve before it really ramps back up. anyway, it's smaller but i hope you enjoy!
> 
> i own nothing, i am nothing but the writer and editor.

Reid had slipped into the room rather inconspicuously as he had been regaled by Garcia that Emily had passed out under the influence of the heavy pain medication. He was only really there under the pretext that he knew his teammate wouldn’t be awake and because he needed to reconcile some things. One being the intensity of the brunette’s injuries and the other being what he had missed in the letter in light of the state he had seen his friend in at the scene.

He remembers feeling queasy and nauseous when he had seen her at the park, not something easily done to the young genius who has always been able to face the wounds of victims with ease because he felt slightly detached from them. But this was not another nameless victim in the endless chasm of serial killers, rapist and bombers. This was Emily and she was one of his closest friends, his friend who he already had to mourn the death of once and often spoke of never wanting to have to again.

But he had nearly lost Emily Prentiss again and it had been almost too much of a shock to his system. He thinks how often this woman has actually stared death in the face, well, how much they both had really. Maybe that was a bond that brought them together, maybe it was both their intellects or maybe it was or wasn’t something entirely metaphysical. He can’t quantify these types of things despite his frustration at the fact. What he could quantify is how knee-jerkingly ill he had felt at the sight of her mangled body. He fleetingly and selfishly hopes that the older woman would, in fact, not be able to rejoin the unit once she had recovered, if only to never have to see this kind of havoc wreaked upon her once more.

All of this now had instantaneously brought back an incessant need to escape from reality again, if only for a short while. He thought about dilaudid and he wonders what it is that they are pumping through his friend’s veins that now have her out so effectively. It was not often that Reid felt the sense of envy but in this moment, it was palpable. He shifts uneasily in his chair and reaches down for the file in his lap, opening it before clearing his throat.

He sees the brunette stir out of the corner of his eye and he nearly freezes. He had consciously scooted the chair back further than the rest of his teammates, not quite being able to bring himself within a close physical distance of the woman yet. He notices her head bob slightly before she opens her eyes with what seems to be great difficulty.

“JJ?” he hears her nearly whisper and he sits straighter in his chair, not entirely knowing how to react to the woman’s muddled state.

He just clears his throat again more out of nervous habit than anything else really before finding his voice, “Uh, no, Emily, JJ’s still out but it’s me, Spencer.”

Emily peeks through her eyelids at the lanky doctor who seemed so far away as compared to the other patrons that had adorned her hospital room that day. She sits up, still struggling to open her eyes under the heaviness of her lids but she manages it, “Oh, hey, Spence.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologizes while looking down at the file but instead of reading it, he is staring straight through it as his leg bounces up and down in nervous energy.

He hears Prentiss groan in light frustration and he looks back up at her as she counters, “You didn’t, I guess I’m just a little uncomfortable and restless, that’s all.”

Reid watches as the woman squirms in the hospital bed, not seeming to be able to sit still and is also fidgeting almost as much as he was known to. Before he even realizes that he’s speaking, he’s inquiring, “Are you okay?”

“Well, seeing as the fact that I literally can’t get up out of this bed and walk out of this room is the only thing that is, in fact, keeping me in this bed and in this room,” Emily sighs. “I guess I’m doing alright.”

“You did always have an aversion to hospitals,” he notes out loud, not caring that he was openly profiling her. “Which is ironic considering just how often you seem to end up in them.”

“Ugh,” Prentiss groans again with distaste as she rolls her eyes slightly. “Tell me about it.”

“Why is that actually?” he asks out pure curiosity now as his brow furrows at the older woman.

“Why is what?” Emily asks confused, still a little unsteady from the drugs’ effects on her body and mind. “Why do I always seem to end up in hospitals?”

“No, why do you have an aversion to them?” he simply restates the question.

The brunette laughs ruefully now with a shake of her head, hesitantly replying, “Oh no, no, it’s too embarrassing.”

“Oh, come on, it seems like you and the team seem to know almost every embarrassing moment that’s ever happened in my life,” Spencer protests with a lightness in his voice. “You’ve even witnessed a lot of them.”

“Leave it to the doctor to bring logic into a conversation like this,” she sighs and then shrugs her shoulders. “Fine, I was probably eight or nine but it was one of the rare times that my mother was actually home alone with me, she wasn’t watching me of course because she was in her office working but oh geez-”

“Oh come on, you can’t back out now,” Reid says quickly, a smile on his lips at hearing a story that he’s almost certain that the guarded Emily Prentiss had rarely recounted in her life.

“Alright, so I had a goldfish named Renaldo and I was playing with him in his little fishbowl but I thought he was hungry so I went to get his food on the shelf above the bowl but it was just out of my reach,” she regales with a smile on her face as she stares off distantly in the memory. “Well, I climbed up to get it and who else other than me could fall reaching for goldfish food? The problem was that I landed on the bowl, essentially shattering it, water everywhere and poor Renaldo was as good as dead.”

“Wait, you murdered your goldfish named Renaldo?” the young genius quips in amusement at the story of a little Prentiss.

“Hey, it was at the very most fish-slaughter,” Emily humorously points out as she objects with her index finger towards the man. “Anyway, my mother is absolutely indignant, the poor fish flapping on the ground and little eight year old me was set crying, bleeding and in need of twelve stitches but all my mother was worried about was how I had the gall to hurt myself while under her watch.”

“So I’m guessing she took you to the hospital?” Reid offers a guess, a wincing smile planted firmly on his face.

“Bingo, buddy, and let me tell you, it was one hell of a hospital trip,” the older woman embellishes. “My mother went storming in that Emergency Room, dragging me along, bleeding and she was demanding that I be treated right away because she was an important dignitary who had serious work to do – as if the doctors and nurses of the ER didn’t have important work to do.”

“Ouch,” the young man winces at the notion of a poor, embarrassed little Emily who had to deal with this kind of treatment from her mother.

“Yeah, by the time I actually was seen the whole entire hospital staff was so fed up with my mother that the doctors were refusing to treat me,” she recalls with a shake of her head. “And there was only one nurse in the entire ER who was willing to put up with my mother’s ranting and raving long enough to actually stitch me up and so you could say I’ve had issues with hospitals ever since that moment.”

“Well, that’s understandable because now when you go to the hospital, those adolescent emotions trigger a sense of immediate embarrassment and shame at both being injured and needing treatment,” Spencer starts to rant slightly. “And to think that all those feelings stem from the innate-”

“I know I have mommy issues, Reid,” the brunette deadpans as she stares a little wide-eyed at the man but a small smirk still graces her lips at the doctor’s reasoning. “And also hospitals tend to remind me of my abortion so…”

“I didn’t know that you had an abortion,” the young genius’ face grows serious at this and she sees the near scowl on his face now.

“Uh, yeah, well, I have the kids I’m meant to have now and I was just a kid myself then,” she shrugs with a sad smile still lacing her lips. “And it was a long time ago, no sense in dredging the lake now.”

Reid nods, understanding this entirely. He had more than a few things in his lake that he didn’t feel like dredging up. He glances back down at the file now. His mind seems to quickly wander back to the case. He looks back up at the woman, “How did you come to the conclusion that the unsub was Jewish?”

Prentiss shakes her head a little, staring at the man a little lost at how they had gotten to that question but she shrugs, “I didn’t, Reid, cause it’s just a theory.”

“It’s not because you’re right,” he relays to her at a rapid rate. “The unsub mentions Israel, the Jewish faith and race fifty-six times in a two-hundred and thirty-two word letter, he mentions it even more than he does being a Muslim, Islam or quotes from the Koran so it’s not a theory, it’s a forgone conclusion that I missed.”

“Reid, we all miss things sometimes,” the brunette says seriously. “It’s why we’re a team.”

“I don’t,” Reid retorts with a shake of his head. “I don’t miss things like this, Emily.”

Emily bends her neck at the man’s completely irrational rationalization and stretches it a little as she lingers in thought for a moment, mouth opening and closing in hesitation, “You were distracted when that letter came in and I understand that, I’ve been there, we’ve all been there.”

“No, I can’t allow myself the luxury of self-pity and distraction when there are people like you whose lives are at stake,” the doctor argued. “That’s not an option.”

“That’s like asking yourself not to be human and you’re not a computer,” the older agent says with a firm shake of her head, staring the man in the eyes as he’s avoiding hers. “It’s okay, Spence.”

“No, Emily, it’s really not,” he quips before the sound of an old digital ringtone seems to tear them from their gazes. Spencer pulls out the ancient cellular device from his pocket as he reads the message that Garcia had sent to everyone on the team. “Someone IDed the bomber who died as Robert Bowman, he was a local welder known for his ties to white power groups, I got to get back to the station.”

The brunette just stares at the man as he stands from the chair and quickly closes the file, more than a little concerned by their earlier conversation but she knew there was nothing she could do to help the genius as he was certainly the kind that just had to figure out some stuff on his own, whether it was the hard way or not. So she just nods blindly.

“Are you gonna be okay here by yourself before Garcia and JJ are able to get back?” Reid inquires, a little concerned now for his older friend but she just shrugs.

“Well, I’m not exactly going anywhere and I know where the button is.”

Reid just nods his head quickly before giving her the once over and then steps closer, bending over and gives her a light hug which surprises her at first before she returns the gesture. But before she knows it, the shaggy haired doctor is waving goodbye and is out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Renaldo. btw, the goldfish story is actually semi-autobiographical except for the irrational mother part and the goldfish bowl was empty when it happened to me, thank god.


	15. yet no reassurance lies in uncertainty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't care for this chapter. it's mostly just filler really. i'm sorry, guys. the next one is pretty intense so i figured i needed something a little lighter to balance things out. and i'm gonna post updates faster again hopefully.
> 
> y'all know i don't own anything, ect, ect.

JJ is a little irritated at the traffic that adorned the college town as she rounded the streets that were the grid of Charlottesville but it was a late September Saturday which also meant football was happening despite all that has been going on in the town the last couple of days. She has to park a little farther away from the hospital entrance than she likes but she theorizes that maybe she needs the time to clear her head before going up to see her wife again.

As her heels hit the pavement of the sidewalk, she’s lost in thought as she approaches a nearby bus stop and then spots the long limbs of Doctor Spencer Reid sitting upon the bench, file in hand while the other is staring at the probably ten year old cell phone in his hand. She furrows her brow as she approaches the man, “Hey, Spence, what are you doing here?”

Reid is caught off guard by the sudden arrival of his blonde friend and takes a breath before speaking rapidly, “Oh, I was just visiting Emily while Garcia grabbed some lunch but I need to get back to the station because we’ve had a break in the case.”

“A break in the case?” the female agent inquires, suddenly more interested. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve identified the second bomber and Garcia is meeting us at the station so we can go over all she’s dug up on the man,” Reid explains. “I’m sorry for having to leave Emily alone but we’re trying to find any kind of connection that will lead to the other unsub.”

JJ just sighs while shaking her head, “No, I get it, you guys are working the case and honestly, if I know Em she probably needs a few minutes alone right now.”

“Yeah, she seems a little restless,” the doctor shares with a nod. “You know how she is with hospitals… Hey, did you know that she had a goldfish named Renaldo as a little girl?”

JJ just shakes her head in confusion at the turn in the conversation and she’s surprised that she, in fact, didn’t know this tidbit of information. “No, I didn’t know that, Spence.”

“Oh, well, you should ask her about that,” he says with a smile, his eyes glancing down quickly and then back up. “Don’t tell her I said this but it’s actually a pretty funny story.”

“Okay, I’ll be sure to do that,” she says as she takes a seat on the bench next to her friend. “So how are you doing, with Emily and all of this, Spence?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that seeing as it’s your wife who is hurt?” he asks as his eyes squint in the afternoon sun.

“Maybe but I’ve had a little more time to process than you have,” JJ relents, shifting the conversation away from herself which is something she knows she’s a little too good at. “And I know how you are with her, I mean after Doyle and everything.”

“Yeah, I guess there’s this part of me that’s scared to death to lose her again,” Spencer says with a confessional nod. “I had a moment of weakness when I was watching her sleep and my thoughts went to pretty dark places.”

Not many people knew how hard it was on the man to lose Emily the first time but JJ was one of the few. In retrospect, he should’ve known the truth about the brunette's supposed death if only by reading that the blonde’s grief at that time had been somewhat disingenuous. But no one knew the depth that the women’s relationship truly held then, well, at least he hadn’t. She had also been one of the few people that he had actually opened up to about his addiction.

“Dark?” JJ questions, knowing what the boy was more than likely referencing. “Dark as in like dilaudid?”

“Yeah,” he says unable to meet her piercing blue stare now. He swallows harshly before clearing his throat. “I allowed myself to be envious of her for a moment, that she could be knocked out on drugs and not have to deal with everything going on, the case and her being injured. It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous, Spence,” JJ says with a shake of her head. “It’s normal but trust me when I say that Emily is probably waging her own war within herself right about now.”

“What do you mean?” the young genius inquires.

“She’s facing a life without being able to work or play with the kids and it’s a long road to recovery with these sorts of things,” JJ says with a frustrated sigh. “It’s not going to be easy.”

“But she’s the strongest person I know,” Spencer offers in an attempt at condolence. “She’ll work through it but Garcia mentioned that they are going to be changing her dressings in a few hours.”

JJ just nods, Garcia had been in communication with her via text earlier that afternoon. It was the reason that the blonde had left her children so soon after arriving. She needed to be back beside her wife, a constant show of support.

“I was reading this book that I grabbed last night on amputations and it said that one of the most painful processes would be changing the dressings on the wounds,” Reid relays, and JJ stares at the doctor’s reasoning dumbfounded. Of course, he would pick up and finish a book on amputations for light reading in his downtime between the case and the hospital. She just shakes her head a little in disbelief. “Well, that and the phantom limb pain.”

“Yeah, and she’s already been experiencing that a little,” JJ says with another nod, she sighs again while her head falls in her hands and she clears her mind as it wanders to a different subject altogether. “Reid, what was the theory that Emily helped Derek figure out?”

“It’s not really a theory, it’s more a fact that I overlooked in the second letter,” Spencer says, the shame a little less intense after his conversation with the injured brunette. “The unsub who is still alive is of the Jewish faith.”

The female agent looks at the doctor as if he had grown a second head, her brows furrowing and she shakes her head incredulously, “What? I thought they were white supremacists?”

“They are, it just seems that one is self-loathing and acting out more than the other was,” Reid says seriously and JJ nearly groans at the idea. “And we both know how this will more than likely end.”

“Yeah,” JJ says quickly, her head bobbing up and down as the loose blonde curls that she had let fall over her shoulders follow. “Either murder-suicide or suicide by cop and neither one is really acceptable.”

“No, it’s not,” the genius says as a bus suddenly pulls up to the sidewalk where they were sitting. He slowly stands, not wanting to have to leave his friends again, but is now looking down at the blonde. “This is my ride.”

JJ stands and hesitantly hugs the younger man, the thoughts of what she was about to face in that hospital and what the genius was about to have to face at the police station overwhelming her now and the relentless tears return to her.

“Hey, hey, it’ll be okay,” Reid tries to whisper reassuringly in her ear as he squeezes her a little tighter. “I promise this will all work out, one way or another.”

JJ pulls away from him and nods, wiping the tears away and laughs humorously, unconvinced, “Yeah.”

They depart with little more than that and JJ thoughtlessly wounds her way into the hospital again. She’s beginning to memorize the hallways and the directions that lead her to her wife’s room. She arrives there without much realization really. She breathes in and out evenly as she tightens the go-bag over her shoulder and slides the glass door open.

As she enters the room, she sees her wife laying there with a look of complete and utter boredom, maybe it was more helplessness really as she stared out the window of the hospital. She smiles over at her wife regardless hoping that she could ease the tension that had fallen between them every time they were together now it seems.

“Hey, you,” JJ manages easily as she crosses the room, setting the bag down on the table on the left side. “You know, I ran into Reid outside and he mentioned something about a goldfish named Renaldo?”

Her brunette wife finally registers her presence as she seemed to have spaced out since Reid had left. Her thoughts full of everything and nothing all at once. She offers a weak smile towards the blonde and JJ is just relieved to even see it there now.

“Did he?” Emily retorts playfully. “And here I thought we shared doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“You should know better that nothing stays confidential long with this team,” JJ shares, continuing with the light tone in her voice as best she can manage. She goes back to the right side of the bed as she takes the seat that she had adorned the night prior. Seeming to fill the empty void where her wife’s leg should be. She sighs as she takes her wife’s right hand in her hers. “How are you doing?”

“As good as can be expected,” the older woman says with a sigh. “Bored out of my skull, sick of this place and a little dazed from all the drugs they’re pumping me full of.”

“Makes sense but hopefully you’ll only be here for a few more days,” the blonde says in hopes of pacifying her wife for now. “Any more pain?”

“Here and there but they’re keeping me pretty doped up,” Emily says ruefully before looking her wife in the eyes, hesitantly broaching the subject she know she needs to. “How did it go with the kids?”

And it’s JJ’s turn to sigh now, she smiles however and shrugs her shoulders, “Honestly, pretty well considering, better than I expected.”

“Really?” the brunette asks surprised.

“Yeah, I mean I know Henry is secretly a little scared and worried about you but he took it well,” JJ relays truthfully. “He even said that you were ‘cool like a Jedi’ now.”

Emily laughs now, her forehead scrunching at the idea as she doesn’t seem to follow her wife’s meaning, “What?”

“He compared this to when Anakin and Luke lost their arms in Star Wars,” JJ says with a playful smile, her eyebrows raised in humorous disbelief.

The older woman laughs, a true, genuine laugh and shakes her head and rolls her eyes, “God, we’ve let him spend too much time with Reid, and Garcia, haven’t we?”

“Apparently, but Michael didn’t really understand though,” JJ says with a shake of her head and a shrug as she looks at her wife. “He just really wants to see you.”

“Good cause I really want to see them but,” Emily says before cutting herself off, the smile dropping from her features as anxiety seems to set there now. She's avoiding those blue eyes and JJ doesn't need words to read her wife now.

“But you’re worried about how they’ll react actually seeing you like this,” JJ says, easily reading the expression on the brunette agent’s face after all these years. She knows cause she feels the same way. “And honestly, I am too but I think it’ll just take them some time to get used to it.”

“That makes… all of us, huh?” Emily offers with a small, sad smirk at her wife.

“Yeah, but you’re lucky cause I and they still love you no matter what,” JJ says with a more joyful smile as she leans forward, grabbing her wife by the jaw and connecting their lips for a moment.

“Good cause I still love your stubborn ass too,” the older woman says as her eyes shift away shyly with a smile that seems to reach her eyes for once. JJ simply smiles at her wife’s reasoning and squeezes her hand tighter. Time would hopefully heal these wounds inside and outside of themselves, but they would just have to take each one step at a time.


	16. as pain will send you to your knees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a pretty long and intense ride of a chapter like we all over the place but i hope you enjoy it. the next few chapters are gonna get pretty intense as well so hold on, guys. stick with me. the action is coming...
> 
> i own nothing. i'm the sole editor.

The red-headed woman that JJ had met yesterday walks in the room with a team of nurses surrounding her and the blonde instantly knew what was happening next would not only be rough on Emily but be taxing on herself as well. She doesn’t know if she’s prepared for this or that she ever could be.

As for her wife, the brunette simply looks confused by the woman’s presence but by the white coat that she’s adorns, it’s easy to assume that this was her doctor. She had been warned about this part of her recovery by the nurses earlier. They had also warned her that it was going to be painful and uncomfortable but that it was necessary for her wounds to heal. She had nodded her head blindly, not really able to comprehend it in that moment but here she was and she knew this was going to suck.

“Hi, Agent Jareau, it’s good to see you again,” the red-head nods towards the blonde who simply lends a tight-lipped smile her way before she turns towards the dark-haired woman in the bed. “Hello, Agent Prentiss, my name is Doctor Augusta; I’m one of the surgeons that worked on you yesterday.”

“Hi,” Emily says in a smaller voice than she wished she had. _Way to be strong there, Prentiss._ She feels JJ’s hand clasp with her own and hold tight, a show of solidarity that she was grateful for.

“I was lucky enough to meet your beautiful wife yesterday already,” she regales the brunette who nods. “But I’m happy to finally meet you and see that you’re awake and doing okay now but the nurses have told me that you’re experiencing what we call phantom limb pain, is that right?”

“Uh, yeah,” the older woman just nods, not knowing what else to say.

“Well, I want to assure you that it’s completely normal to be experiencing that kind of discomfort,” the woman says with her friendly bedside manner. “And in a couple of weeks, you’ll be starting physical therapy to help you deal with that sort of thing and build back strength in your leg so it should ease the discomfort slowly but surely, alright?”

JJ who had been listening closely to what the red-headed doctor was saying, nods a little more assured by this fact. She hoped that with time and the physical therapy that her wife would quickly be on the mend but she knows it’s a long road ahead regardless.

“So, Emily, now we have to do the first dressing change today,” the red-head says calmly as a nurse comes over and pulls the sheet back from the brunette’s waist, revealing the bandaged remainder of her leg. With this, Emily looks up towards the ceiling and then to her left where JJ stood close to her head. “Okay, we’re going to take these bandages off.”

JJ just looks her wife in the eyes, she sees the trepidation and nerves there in the brown irises as she just squeezes her hand and nods in an attempt at reassurance. She hears her wife whisper slightly, “I can’t look.”

“You don’t have to,” the blonde whispers back just as quietly. “I won’t either.”

“If things get too rough, please just let us know and we can figure out how to help you,” Augusta continues as she and a nurse lift the stump of her leg and she winces at the pain slightly.

“I’m sorry,” they hear the nurse say absentmindedly as she places a protective pad between her leg and the bed. JJ chances a look over and then quickly meets her wife’s eyes again.

“And did you already pre-medicate her for the dressing change?” they hear Augusta inquire of one of the nurses.

“Yep,” the nurse replies as Emily closes her eyes, trying to be anywhere but here right now. “She’s already gotten her oxy and dilaudid PO, she has a PR in fentanyl for breakthrough and I have plenty in my pocket.”

The blonde is listening closely to what the nurse has to say and the word ‘dilaudid’ makes her feel uneasy for understandable reasons but they didn’t know that.

“Now some people like to look,” Augusta says while turning her attention back to Emily and JJ. “Some people don’t like to look at all.”

“No, I can’t look right now,” the dark-haired woman says with a shake of her head as she turns her head back to her wife who is nodding again and staring at her with some kind of adoration or was it pity? She’s not sure but she sighs either way.

“So, Marion, if you can hold up the right leg,” she hears the doctor directing the nurse. “That would be helpful and we’ll unwrap it now.”

“All righty, I’m just gonna lift you up,” the nurse says easily, as she places her gloved hands underneath the leg and lifts which causes Emily to wince again as the nurses places one of her hands on her shoulder in support. “I’m sorry, hon.”

Emily chances a glance down and shuts her eyes again, moving her head away again as Augusta starts to remove the bandage, “So I’m just taking the tape off and I’m gonna unwrap the Ace bandage first.”

Emily just nods absentmindedly, her eyes still closed as she hears the doctor say, “This shouldn’t be too bad. But if you have any sharp pains or anything, please let me know.”

JJ leans in closer, touching the back of her wife’s neck lightly as the brunette opens her eyes again and meets her wife’s blue ones.

“You doing okay?” one of the nurse asks and Emily nods again, wincing still slightly.

“Yeah, yeah,” shaking her head and she feels the sweat pooling on her forehead again. It shouldn’t be this hard, none of it should be this rough.

“Almost done with the gauze,” the nurse sings slightly.

The older agent grimaces in pain as the doctor keeps spinning the bandage off before she leans forward with the pain of it, whimpering, “Fuck, fuck.”

“You okay?” Augusta asks, stilling her motions for a moment. “Let us know if you need a break, okay?”

“You’re okay,” JJ whispers while looking her wife square in the eyes again. “You’re doing great.”

“Don’t look at it, Jay,” Emily sighs with labored breath and shaking her head.

“I’m not looking at anything but you, alright?” boring her eyes into Emily’s face so the older agent knows she’s serious as she says this.

“Okay, this part might be a little sticky,” they hear Augusta say as she tries to peel the last of the bandage off of the wound of her knee but with no luck. “There’s some dried blood so one big pull.”

_One, two, three._

“God!” the brunette exclaims as the sound in the room is sickening as the bandage is ripped from her skin. And Emily is wrenching forward towards JJ again and shaking in intense pain, her head meeting against JJ’s forehead as the blonde struggles to not wince at the sight, squeezing her wife’s hand again and leaving her other one rubbing her wife’s neck in an attempt at soothing her.

“That’s it,” the nurse appeases. “That’s it, that’s it.”

“You did fantastic,” JJ says in support, nodding her head at her wife. Emily looks back into her wife’s eyes surprised for some reason.

“Okay, the dressing’s off,” the nurse says soothingly. “We’ll give you a minute. Nice little breaths.”

“Good job,” JJ murmurs as Emily struggles to regulate her breathing.

“In your nose and out your mouth,” the nurse continues to direct.

“That was the worst,” Augusta regales. “Getting the dressing off is the worst.”

“Just breathe,” JJ says lowly towards her wife, breathing in and out as an example.

And with this some memory comes floating in and out of Emily’s mind, maybe it’s the drugs or the pain or a combination of it all. But the dark-woman is transported back to one of the best moments in her life despite this probably being one of the worst she had ever experienced.

_JJ lurches forward in pain and nearly screams at the top of her lungs despite the pain medication and the block she had been given to keep her from feeling much of anything. But Emily could see she felt it all and she winces at the sight. Maybe it was the sight or maybe it was just excruciating pain in her nearly numbed hand from her wife’s death grip upon it._

_“Just breathe, babe, just breathe,” the brunette tries her best hand at encouragement. “You’re doing so good, so good.”_

_“Easy for you to say,” JJ manages through gritted teeth. “You haven’t been doing this for hours.”_

_“Alright, I see your little girl’s dark little hairs,” the doctor calls from below JJ’s waist and if this wasn’t such a vital and intimate moment, Emily would probably be mad about it. “One big push and we can meet your daughter.”_

_With this, Emily sees her wife put up a force of strength that she didn’t think possible. Pushing with all her might and squeezing her wife’s hand for all it was worth but the older woman didn’t care. She was starting to tear up and they hadn’t even met their child yet. Jesus, JJ was turning her into such a sap._

_Suddenly little cries envelope the room that goes almost reverent with them and JJ falls back onto the bed in relief, having experienced this enough times to know that for now, her job was done. She tries to catch her breath but the doctor is placing the dark-haired little girl in her arms and the tears well up at the vision of this little creature. Their little girl._

_Emily had stepped away to cut the cord for a minute but meets back at her wife’s side and take in her child, their child and the brunette was shaking her head in disbelief at this fact. She never thought that this could happen, that she would have a child, let alone one that shared her own DNA._

_“Thank you, Jay,” Emily whispers as she connects her forehead to her wife, not able to stop her feeling of gratitude towards her wife. “Thank you so much, Jennifer.”_

_“No, thank you,” JJ replies as she is smiling through the tears of joy that are streaming down her face now. “Gah, she’s so beautiful, she looks just like you, babe.”_

_“Poor thing,” is Emily’s sarcastic remark and JJ swats at her. “I know we had a name picked out but I want to name her Rosalyn, we can call her Roz for short.”_

_“Rosalyn?” JJ asks, taken completely off guard and now staring into her wife’s eyes. “Like my sister?”_

_“Yeah, she’ll have a little bit of both us in her that way,” Emily offers and JJ just nods, kissing her wife for a moment with her own gratitude before Emily places a soft kiss to her forehead._

_“You did so good, babe.”_

“You did so good, babe,” JJ says softly, rubbing the hair at the apex of her wife’s forehead. Emily’s eyes start to come into a little more focus and she looks around, noticing that the sun had nearly set out the window and she’s not entirely sure what had happened.

“Hey,” Emily croaks before clearing her throat. “Was I asleep?”

“Hey, yeah, we lost you for a little bit there,” JJ says with a nod her head. “You passed out for a couple of hours right after they changed your dressing.”

“Oh, I don’t even remember that,” Emily says with a confused shake of her head.

“Yeah, well, the drugs will do that to you,” JJ sighs before smiling back at her wife. “You seemed like you were having a good dream though, what was it about?”

“It was a memory actually,” the older woman says, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Oh, yeah?” JJ inquires surprised, looking interested now. “What of?”

“For some reason what happened earlier reminded me of when you had Roz,” the brunette offers quietly and JJ just laughs lightly.

“That’s an interesting comparison,” JJ responds as she rolls her eyes slightly.

“Yeah, I don’t know why but it just did,” Emily says as she shrugs her shoulders and she feels JJ go back to playing with her hair again as she just stares at the blonde.

“You need to wash your hair,” JJ says, still playing with the still greasy and bloody strains. “You need a shower.”

“No,” comes Emily's expected sarcastic reply.

“Yes,” JJ affirms, already knowing what her wife was doing.

“No,” the brunette repeats with a smile on her lips now.

“Yes,” JJ nods emphatically to clear her point. “It still smells like…”

The blonde’s statement trails off as the tears well in her eyes and she shakes her head again but before she knows it, she breaks down, tears streaming down her cheeks with abandon as she had been able to stop the outbursts for most of the day. But now, she couldn’t because her dam was full and she had to let it out.

She feels Emily’s finger brushing slightly against her cheek, “Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” JJ offers through her tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t say that,” the older woman replies easily.

“I’m so sorry,” JJ says again, this time she’s not really sure why. Maybe for all they had been going through before this, maybe it was for leaving her at the site of the bomb. “Not just for now but for everything, all of it.”

“Don’t say that,” Emily says with a shake of her head. “Cause I’m not sorry about any of it, I still have you right here and those three beautiful kids at home, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

JJ just gasps and sniffles from the tears that had fallen. Suddenly they are drawn from the reverent moment by the sound of a phone going off in the room. JJ grasps at herself in search of the phone that she already knew is hers. When she finally finds it, she reads the message there.

“Hotch wants me to call him,” JJ says confused as she stares at the screen as she wiped away the forgone tears.

“What do you think that’s about?” the brunette questions warily.

The blonde simply shrugs, sniffling in attempt to try to keep her emotions at bay, “He might just want an update.”

But the older agent had a sinking feeling that that's not all it was.


	17. but in duty you will heed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a terribly short chapter that sets up some of the upcoming action. strap on your boots, it's gonna get interesting.
> 
> psa: i have writer's block and life it stressful so i'm not gonna be able to update this as often until things settle down
> 
> anyway, i own nothing, i'm the only editor.

The blonde stepped out of the hospital room and hit the green button on the iPhone to call her unit chief. She sighs and rubs at her forehead as she wonders what this is about, she had been talking to Garcia all day and the woman was at the station so it couldn't simply be a courtesy call to check-up on her wife. She just hopes it's not serious as she hears the device ring only once before the man on the other end swiftly picks up.

“JJ?” Hotch’s stark voice made its way through the receiver.

“Yeah, Hotch,” JJ says through her phone. “I got your message, what’s up?”

“Have you been watching the news at all this afternoon?” he asks quickly and JJ shakes her head at the abrupt question.

“No, no, I’ve been at the hospital with Em,” JJ says like it was obvious. “I haven’t exactly been tuned into the media, what’s going on?”

“I think we made a mistake,” Hotch says with a sigh on his end and the younger agent furrows her brows at the clear sound of frustration that was coming from her boss.

“A mistake?” JJ questions confused at what the man was inferring. “What do you mean?”

“We released both suspects’ photos that we found on social media from the rally this morning,” Hotch relays the information quickly. “This was in hopes that someone would ID them before we could and it worked in the case of the bomber who died but we think it’s set the second unsub into motion.”

“Why are you calling me about this, Hotch?” JJ inquires, still baffled at the reason for this phone call.

“JJ, I know what I’m asking but I need you to come down to the station,” Hotch says seriously and JJ is taken aback by the suggestion.

“Hotch, I haven’t been cleared for duty yet,” JJ protests, knowing that she would drop most things to help out her team but she didn’t think she could this time. “And I can’t leave Em alone right now.”

“Like I said, I know what I’m asking, JJ,” Hotch repeats, gravity in his voice now. “You have to trust that I wouldn’t be if it wasn’t absolutely prevalent, do you understand?”

“What’s happened?” JJ asks, knowing that there had to be some sort of trigger of events that would have Hotch asking this of her right now.

“There was a mass shooting at a synagogue this morning at Sabbath prayer, the place was rigged with bombs but when the detonation failed, he started shooting and we believe it was our unsub,” he speaks quickly in the receiver. “Eight people died and he seems to be escalating after seeing the media coverage that we’re looking for him, so now he has high-jacked a car.”

“Do we know where he is headed?” JJ asks the obvious question, easily slipping back into professional profiler mode before she can even think better of it.

“We don’t know his current whereabouts but that’s where you come in,” Hotch offers with a sigh. “We need you here at the station with Reid to work the geological profile so we can figure out his next steps while we canvas the city.”

“Well, I hope this counts as paperwork or else my doctor’s gonna be pretty pissed,” JJ says with a sigh, rubbing the crease in her forehead. “What am I going to do about Em?”

“I’ve already dispatched Garcia back to the hospital so she’ll stay with her and work from there,” Hotch says quickly before pausing momentarily. “And JJ, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be,” the blonde says with a shake of her head. “I know you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t absolutely have to, I’ll be there in twenty.”

With that she hangs up the phone and sighs before making her way back into the room where her wife was laying seeming to be staring at the door until the younger agent walks through. There’s a seriousness to Emily’s features now that tells JJ that she already knows something is up.

“What did Hotch want?” she asks the simple question but she seems to already know the answer as she continues. “He wants you at the station working, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” JJ says with a light nod as she starts to throw her blonde hair up in an easy and quick ponytail with the hair tie around her wrist. Preparing herself for the job at hand. “How did you know?”

“What happened?” the brunette inquires with her head lowered, a solemn look about her.

“The unsub shot up a synagogue and high-jacked a car and they want me at the station to help Reid narrow the geological profile,” the blonde relays with a seriousness to her as well. “The team will be out canvassing the city.”

Emily just nods, seeming to be taking in all she had just heard. Her eyes seem distant and hesitant like there’s something she wants to say but can’t manage the words. All JJ could see in her eyes is that the older woman sometimes hates being right.

“Have you been cleared for work?” Emily asks warily.

“Well, I’ve been cleared for paperwork and the geological profile is about as close as you can get to paperwork in the BAU, right?” JJ offers with a little smile and a shrug, trying to lighten the mood. “Look, you know I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t think this was important but we need to know where this guy is headed, I want this bastard’s head on a stake.”

“I get it, JJ,” the brunette says with a nod of her head, knowing it would be hypocritical of her to try and stop her wife. “Just… be careful, okay? This guy sounds pretty unpredictable so it’s hard to know what he’ll do next.”

“I know, Em,” JJ says with a simple nod. “But you know I’ll be safe and back before you know it.”

With this, JJ picks up her coat from one of the chairs and throws it easily over her shoulders while reaching out for the keys to their SUV on the nearby table before turning back to her wife. She notes that the woman is just staring at her and watching her with what seems like a morose expression that JJ can’t trace to one particular reason or another. She simply leans over the bed and gives the woman a kiss, a real kiss which she tries to relay all the reassuring emotions that she can through.

“Garcia will be here in a little bit, she’s going to be working from here,” JJ says with a comforting smile on her face. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll even let you help her.”

“Yeah, only to be chastise by you for it later,” Emily scoffs sarcastically. “Fat chance.”

JJ just laughs lightly, shaking her head at her wife’s antics before squeezing her hand tight, “I love you and I’ll be back soon.”

“You better,” the older agent responds. “And I love you too.”

And with that the blonde is fleeing quickly from the room in a mad dash to try and get this over with so she could be back by her wife’s side. She finds herself questioning whether this is really a good idea, it seems that even the slightest noises reverberate through her ears so she can’t imagine what the bustling sound of a fraught police station was going to do to her. She just shakes her head at the thought, it didn’t really matter. She was going to help her team catch the bastard that looked her wife in the face and hurt her. That was enough for her.


	18. until the answers unravel at rapid speeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise, i am still suffering from writer's block with this story so just be patient. alright, guys, this is also kind of short but the action is finally here. enjoy!

JJ walked into the precinct quickly with a purposeful stride to her step as she maneuvers around all the local and federal officials who were lining up in preparation to catch this guy. She spots Morgan and Reid setup in the back, in front of a whiteboard discussing something and she quickly makes her way over to them as swiftly as she can manage. Reid is the first to spot her and seems to be sporting a painful smile on his face as Derek turns and sees the woman’s arrival as well.

“Well, it’s about damn time, blondie,” Morgan quips with a smile on his face.

“Don’t push it, Derek, I’m only here out of courtesy to catch the fucker who tried to kill my wife,” JJ says with her own sharp hint of sarcasm though the two agents both know she wasn’t kidding. “Besides traffic was horrible, you’d think there was a manhunt on, now what do we got?”

Morgan just shakes his head at the woman’s resolve as he picks up a file and hands it to her, “Daniel Ballentine, 23-year-old half-Jewish neo-Nazi, former UVA student and resident scumbag.”

“Last year, Ballentine’s father was killed in a mysterious work-related accident at the farming machinery factory that he owned and Daniel worked last summer,” Reid relays the information.

JJ nods in understanding as she quickly reads over the file in front of her, “We think Ballentine killed him?”

“Seeing as his medical records show a myriad of hospital visits as a child for multiple fractures and breaks, we think Ballentine’s father abused him,” Derek says seriously with a nod. “So it’s a forgone conclusion that Ballentine killed his father and harbored some sort of self-loathing towards himself and his faith since his father was Jewish.”

“Ballentine was also an engineering student at UVA until the spring semester when he was forced to drop out because a tuition check didn’t go through and he didn’t have the money to pay it back,” the doctor adds. “His father was the one paying the tuition until his death but it seemed the money dried up as it was going towards hospital bills.”

“Hospital bills?” JJ inquires with a raised eyebrow towards the man.

Reid nods, “Ballentine’s mother has been hospitalized with a paralyzing form of Parkinson’s disease.”

“It seems that Ballentine and his deceased partner Bowman were both members of an extreme right-wing group that met through the college,” Morgan says. “It seemed to be a Nazis playground but the group was forced to shut down after they incited a riot once before on campus.”

“So he feels disenfranchised, is out of money and has no outlet for his rage other than the people he thinks is responsible,” JJ says with a nod of her head, adding it all up.

“That’s not all, it seems that the targeting of law enforcement and agents at the rally was, in fact, no coincidence,” Derek relays. “He harbors resentment towards law enforcement due to the fact that there were many domestic disputes and Daniel was removed from his home multiple times due to the abuse he suffered but was always returned later when the charges didn’t pan out.”

“So he blames authority for the fact that his father beat him,” JJ says, finishing reading up the file and looking at the two men in front of her. “So he’s only a white supremacist due to the fact that his father was Jewish?”

“It seems that way,” Morgan says with a shrug.

“But how did he rope Bowman into doing this with him if the motive is purely personal?” JJ throws the question out at the two men.

“Well, it seems that Bowman was an intellectual who was forced to work as a welder after he stopped receiving welfare checks when his father was arrested by the Bureau for embezzlement,” Reid offers simply. “He felt just as disenfranchised as Ballentine due to the fact that the government stopped paying out to support him after his father’s arrest.”

“So was their motive at the rally ever really about race at all?” JJ asks as if it were obvious.

“Well, they’re neo-Nazis, JJ,” Morgan says seriously. “Why else would they go to a rally that was setup to protest the existence of the confederate statue? They knew there would be marginalized groups and law enforcement there.”

“Exactly but I think the rally was just a matter of convenience,” JJ says as it dawns on her but both men are staring at her, confused, not quite following her train of thought.

“What do you mean?” Reid asked and he was more than curious to find out what the blonde was getting at.

“Think about it, they sent that letter to us before the rally even happened,” JJ hypothesizes. “So they wanted us there hunting them so they could actually stage their attack on us.”

“‘The true Jews were born and bred with no home if not for interference of the infidel,’” Reid mutters under his breath but JJ and Derek both catch it as they stare at the man.

“What was that, Reid?” Morgan asks with a raise of his eyebrow.

“I think JJ’s right, they weren’t targeting the marginalized they were targeting the FBI,” Reid says quickly, his brain going a million miles per hour. “In the second letter, Ballentine wrote, ‘The true Jews were born and bred with no home if not for interference of the infidel.’”

“And what does that mean?” JJ shrugged her shoulders in confusion.

“He wasn’t referencing Israel or even the American government, he was referencing corporate America and the FBI; we're the infidels,” Reid adds it all together but Morgan and JJ are still struggling to follow. “Ballentine was raised by a Jewish father who was a slave to the farming company that he owned while going home and taking his frustrations out on his son while Bowman’s father was arrested by the FBI for embezzling thousands of dollars from another company.”

“Yeah but why would Ballentine hold that against the FBI?” Morgan inquires, he was starting to get what Reid was saying but he wanted the theory air-tight before moving forward on the hunch.

“In his delusions, he holds it against the FBI for not stopping his father from owning the company that left him scouring for money to make ends meet which Ballentine ultimately couldn’t do after his father’s death and he holds it against all law enforcement for not stopping his father from beating him due to his financial frustration,” Reid concludes.

“And this is the command center for the joint task force and the local police,” JJ says with a nod. “He has to be coming here.”

“I’ll call, Hotch,” Derek says quickly. “You two-”

Suddenly the sound of glass shattering comes from the front of the station’s window and a police officer was shouting something that JJ couldn't quite make out from the sound that was bouncing around in her ears. Everything was a higher pitch and garbled. Nothing making sense.

And just like that, JJ suddenly found herself in the midst of yet another explosion.


	19. and reality grounds your feet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, i'm sorry my 'action' filled chapters are always so short and sweet. but i just don't know how to truly indulge and drag out the drama cause i don't want my babes to suffer too much, alright? also i think i'm back on my writing track for this fic, now if only i had time to write and wasn't so damn tired...
> 
> also stoked about 100 kudos... you guys are lovely and so kind... thank you for reading, it means a lot!
> 
> i own nothing. i'm the only editor.

It wasn’t deafening or blinding, the pain was practically paralyzing. The blast had not been of much a force within itself but when the homemade hand grenade sailed through the window and landed under a desk, the splinters were flying. JJ was fifteen feet away and yet still chards of the wood managed to pepper the side of her forehead but that was the least of her problems.

The problem was that her senses were so discombobulated from the sounds of both the window shattering and the explosion, that for a good twenty seconds she honestly couldn’t see anything or move. And she most certainly couldn't hear. She manages to realize that she had been shoved against the whiteboard that the unit had been using and that Reid was relatively unharmed next to her on the floor.

As her vision starts to clear further, JJ sees Morgan with a bleeding forearm start walking towards the front of the building. But due to the myriad of desks obscuring her eyeline, JJ didn’t have a visual on the entrance. She tries to strain her ears for most any noise in the building that she knew had to be full of uproar with just how many law enforcement officers were encompassed in the building. There is nothing there however, near silence for two minutes. JJ feels the blood again however.

Then the sounds returns like a distant voice in a long tunnel. But she knows Reid is right next to her and he’s looking at her square in the eyes now, and she faintly hears him inquiring, “JJ, are you alright?”

As the echoes of the police station flood in, she covers her ears with a recoiling of pain. Reid’s forehead creases and he instinctively knows this isn’t good. All JJ knows is that something is happening inside that police station that demanded her immediate attention. Reid seems to know what the blonde was figuring in her head, “He’s here, Ballentine, but you need to stay down.”

JJ just shakes her head whether out of need to find her senses or in response to Reid’s suggestion, she doesn’t know. It’s probably both but before the young genius could even react; JJ has drawn her gun and manages to make it to her knees, sliding against the far wall of the precinct, still in the shadows of the desks. She peaks her head over just enough to spot the tall man standing at the entrance with a police officer nearly strangled in his arms. She sees no gun for the moment.

She climbs under one of the desks that allows her enough shelter to not be in view of the unsub but she still feels slightly exposed, especially when she notes as she aims the fact that the only thing that this man was armed with was a vest full of pipe bombs and a cellphone. _Shit_ , she thinks. _Not good_. And the fact that Morgan was trying to reason with the man, even with his gun leveled was definitely not good.

Though she can’t exactly hear the conversation happening, everything was tossing around her mind like a jumbled radio station under water, she could read this man’s eyes. She had sadly been in enough of these situations and witnessed enough men like this to _know_ , without words and by simple body language, beyond any shadow of a doubt how this was going to end. She knows she needs to wait however, she couldn’t just shoot without justifiable cause but she feels like trying to murder her wife should come close enough. She tightens her grip on the baby glock that she carries at the thought.

She’s looking for it now with as much patience as she can muster. Despite her injuries, blood tickling down the right side of her face from both her forehead and ear, she doesn’t blink, she doesn’t flinch. She breathes evenly and keeps her hands steady. The moment she sees both Derek and the man’s eyes go wide, Ballentine’s hands shaky and frantic, his thumb twitching over the call button of the cellphone in his hands that she knew to be the end-all, be-all. She watches as Morgan reaches out towards the man. She fires. The bullet that lands right between the man’s eyes is precise and the whole station seems to murmur into a quiet hush.

That’s when Jennifer Jareau knows she’s almost scarily good at her job.

She vaguely sees Morgan checking Ballentine’s neck for a pulse and pulling the only slightly bruised police officer away. She also feels Reid by her side and she grimaces in surprise when he is pressing a rag against her ear to try and stop the bleeding. That’s when Morgan’s eyes meet hers wide in surprise, he hadn’t anticipated it being her that would bring this man down but she had done the job.

“JJ, JJ,” Morgan says as he rapidly approaches her while she sits down on the desk from which she had fired her shot, he is placing a hand on her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

The blonde squints, her brows furrowing as she looks at the man, shaking her head slightly. She’s panting with the adrenaline which is coursing too much for the second day in a row and her voice an octave louder than usual, “A little.”

“If you couldn’t hear our conversation then how did you know when to shoot?” Derek inquires baffled.

“We’re profilers, Morgan, we know when to shoot,” JJ offers with a shrug of her shoulders. “I knew as well as you were that that man had no intentions of walking out of this building alive any more than he wanted us too, besides he tried to kill my wife.”

Morgan and Reid exchange a look momentarily before Derek just nods in understanding now, he couldn’t blame the woman at all, “Well, good shooting, Jareau, now we’re gonna get you checked out and then get you back to that wifey of yours, okay?”

JJ simply nods, only getting bits and pieces of what Morgan was saying as an EMT approaches her to check out her wounded ear. Hotch suddenly enters the building and quickly takes in the chaos of the scene, seeing Ballentine’s body and the bombs strapped to his chest. He spots Morgan, Reid and JJ, quickly making his way over.

“Morgan, what happened?” he asks anxiously.

“Hotch, we figured out that Ballentine’s end game was here at the station,” Derek relays to his boss. “He wanted revenge on us and law enforcement for not stopping the pain he went through as a child but by the time we figured it out, he was already here.”

“And JJ?” he asks, eying the blonde agent who was getting looked over.

“He threw a grenade through one of the windows and luckily no one was seriously injured but there are some shrapnel wounds but JJ,” Morgan hesitates before continuing. “Her ear is in bad shape, man, she can barely hear anything.”

Hotch sighs, his hands going to his forehead in exasperation, “So who took out Ballentine?”

“That was JJ actually,” Reid speaks up as he walks over to the dark agent and his unit chief.

“If she can’t hear anything then how did she take him out?” Hotch asks confused.

“She got into position under a desk where she was unseen and had good line of sight,” Derek explains. “She read his body language, didn’t shoot right away but she still knew the perfect moment to take the shot and honestly, if she hadn’t, Hotch, none of us would be here.”

“Ballentine was past the point of reasoning as Morgan’s presence along with all the other law enforcement here only seemed to be infuriating and triggering him more,” Reid adds with a nod. “He was definitely about to detonate when JJ fired.”

Hotch sighs again, his face betraying nothing as usual but his words are laced with regret, “She shouldn’t have had to, we should’ve known this was his end game and I never should’ve called her here.”

“Hotch, she did her job and a damn good one at that,” Morgan confirms. “Sure, she’s injured but she got the bastard that tried to kill her wife and I think that’s all she cares about at the moment.”

“But I have an injured agent who wasn’t cleared for field duty who ended up killing the unsub and is now more seriously injured because of it,” Hotch relays the situation as he saw it. “The brass is not gonna like this.”

“It was a good shoot, Hotch,” Morgan nods seriously. “They can’t dispute that and we got a myriad of witnesses to back it up and if you ask her, JJ wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Hotch just shakes his head, running one hand through his hair, “She still shouldn’t have had to do this, I called her here and so that falls on me.”

“If you hadn't called her here, who knows what could've happened?” Derek hypothesizes with his brow furrowed. “JJ saved the lives of every person in this building so I won't allow you to regret something you couldn't control, we were short-handed, you made a call and it ended up saving lives and I know JJ doesn't regret it.”

“Besides it wasn’t your fault, Hotch,” Reid attempts to offer. “None of us could’ve known what Ballentine’s true motive was until the end.”

“I think we all know that’s not true,” Hotch says and the stone cold look in his eye told the agents that there would be no argument that could change his point of view.

Morgan just sighs and shrugs, “Well, let’s just thank god that it’s over and now maybe Jennifer and Emily can finally start to heal from all the madness of the last forty-eight hours.”

“Let’s just hope that they can,” Hotch says with a swift nod before walking off to deal with the scene.

Reid and Morgan exchanged rather worried looks with each other before only shrugging and going back to tend to their blonde friend who was now haphazardly placed on a gurney and ready to head to the hospital to get thoroughly checked out. They just hope that with time all who had been hurt, both physically and emotionally through the course of this case, could heal.


	20. to fight against the tides that sweep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sooorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up, i am just struggling so hard with wrapping this fic up but still actively trying to attain ideas for a good and fitting resolution. so just bear with me but i decided to give an update because you guys have been amazing and loyal to this story, even when i haven't. 3k hits is unbelievable! thank you all so much!

Garcia had long set her laptop aside seeing as she had searched far and wide as to where Ballentine could possibly be. She had sent all the information that she managed to scrounge up to the team and now really there was nothing to do but wait for the team to do their jobs, she hated this part. She hated the incessant worries and worst-case-scenarios that tended to course through her mind at the potential outcomes. Now, however, wasn’t so bad because she had reason and cause to keep more than herself distracted.

She also now had one Emily Prentiss to keep occupied. She knew the brunette was full of reservations after JJ had willing walked back into a job that she wasn’t even cleared to do. Penelope knew by the heavy crease that had set itself upon the older woman’s forehead, right between her eyebrows. She knew because every once in a while the conversation would drift off and with it was Prentiss who found herself staring into the distance, eyes wide in uncertainty.

Try as she might, Garcia had failed to completely distract the injured woman but at the moment, she was doing a decent job at it. The two were now laughing about the fact that Garcia had already started purchasing Christmas items for the Jareau-Prentiss clan of children and it was a good three months short of the holiday.

Prentiss shakes her head in laughter at the idea, “Good god, Garcia, our kids don’t have a shot in hell at being grounded with you around to spoil them at every damn chance you get.”

“Well, what’s a fairy godmother for if not to deliver presents, princess?” Garcia says, dead serious with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll get you a nice bright pink prosthetic for your leg this year, how would you feel about that, spoil sport?”

“Ugh,” the brunette groans in thought of the idea before deadpanning. “Yes, pink was always my color.”

“Have you even thought about that?” Garcia asks, a little hesitantly, at least for her.

“The doctor says it’ll be at least a month before I can really even think about that sort of thing,” Emily says with a casual shrug of her shoulders. “I got a lot of work to do before that’s truly even an option.”

“Thank god for a determined Emily Prentiss’ work ethic then, huh?” Garcia says with a beaming smile. She was serious when she said it. She knew that if that is what Prentiss set her mind to accomplish then Penelope had no reason to doubt that this woman would get there as fast as humanly possible. Sometimes Emily Prentiss was as good as a superhero in her book.

“I don’t know, Garcia,” the brunette says quietly with a shake of her head. “I think this is gonna be a lot harder than any of us can really imagine right now but we’re just gonna have to take it one step at a time, more literally than figuratively I guess.”

Penelope is quick to tsk at the older woman, shaking her head in the negative, “Nope, those physical therapist aren’t even going to know what hit them because my girl is as strong as they come and she doesn’t even let death rattle her so this will be a breeze.”

“I’m glad one of us has that kind of faith,” Emily bemoans with a roll of her eyes before the sound of Garcia’s iPhone chiming grabs their attention.

The tech analyst quickly retrieves the device, her smile fading as rapidly as it had arrived. It is now her turn to have concern lacing her forehead and brows, her eyes are now the ones widening but in shock and fear and unknowns. She truthfully has the hardest time digesting the words that she’s reading in the form of Morgan’s swift text. Her mouth goes agape and the older woman is not one to miss these cues.

“Garcia, what is it?” the dark-haired agent inquires quickly, her tone leaving no room for jokes or avoidance from the blonde woman.

Penelope’s eyes are swelling in the faintest hint of tears now and this most certainly is not edging the injured woman’s vigilant interest in the tech analyst’s sudden disposition. The younger woman seems to be trying to articulate herself but her mouth is only opening and closing, the sounds permeating out are not intelligible by any means.

“It’s Morgan,” she manages to nearly squeak out. “Ballentine, the bomber showed up at the police station with explosives but he’s dead, they got him. It’s over.”

“How the hell did that happen?” the brunette asks before the reality suddenly dawns on her, she had allowed herself to forget momentarily just where her wife had gone earlier that evening. “Wait, JJ was headed to the station.”

Garcia can only manage a nod before she’s on her feet and sitting slightly on the older woman’s bedside and grabbing her hands. Prentiss is just shaking her head, not really able to grasp what was happening. Her head felt foggy but she was attentive as ever, her senses heightening with the fear gripping at her chest in such a way before the blonde woman speaks again.

“I need you to listen to me, princess,” Penelope says softly, staring the big, scared brown eyes of her friend down. “She is okay but JJ was injured again and she’s on her way here to the hospital to get checked out, okay?”

Before the tech analyst can even blink, Emily damn Prentiss has every IV and monitor that has been lining her since yesterday unattached from her being. She has managed to scoot towards the opposite side of the bed to where the blonde woman sat and is attempting to stand on her one remaining foot.

“Son of a bitch,” the older woman grits through her teeth as she manages to place the pressure on her left leg as she leans heavily against the side of the bed. She feels the intense pain that comes with the blood rushing to the stump of her right leg but it seems the blood rushing to her head is winning out at the moment.

It’s only in this moment that Garcia seems to snap back into the reality of what was happening and is up, rounding towards the other side of the bed to help support the injured woman who is now breathing with an intense heaviness.

“No, no, no, you can’t do this, Emily!” Penelope says as firmly as she can manage and she’s pretty sure it only barrels out as a shrill. It was certainly not the kind of authoritative voice that she had hoped that it would demand of the stubborn agent who she knows is all but stuck in the one standing position.

“That’s my fucking wife, Garcia!” the brunette finally snaps at her friend but she couldn’t care at the moment, JJ was injured and on her way to the hospital, that alone was enough to light the kind of fire she needed to get up out of that miserable bed.

Suddenly a nurse rounds the corner and starts to peak her head into the room. “Agent Prentiss, there seems to be an issue-” the woman cuts herself short as her eyes widen at the sight before her and she quickly makes it to the other side of the tenacious older woman, grabbing her by the arm. “I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to do, agent but you cannot stand, let alone walk right now!”

“That’s what I was telling her!” Garcia nods vehemently at the nurse who is helping support the slowly sinking agent’s body whose rush of adrenaline seems to be wearing off as she seems to grow weaker in her own determination but still seems to be managing to assemble a hell of a fight against both women.

“Agent Prentiss, I swear to god if you do not sit your ass down, I will call the orderlies to strap you down,” the nurse seems to command in a much more severe tone than the blonde had mustered. “I will not hesitate to sedate you either.”

Prentiss simply shakes her now sweaty head as she seems nearly exhausted from her attempts to make it any further towards the exit, she pants as she speaks, “You don’t understand my wife is hurt and she’s on her way to the ER and I-”

“I would not care if Jesus Christ himself was ascending from the heavens,” the woman says with a firm shake of her head. “He’d have to come in here and walk you out himself, now sit down, agent, before I put you down.”

Garcia is quickly shaking her head and trying to reason with the woman, attempting to meet those determined brown irises again that are simply only eyeing the glass door, “Emily, she’s not even hurt that bad, it’s just her ear again, okay? There were just some complications, please!”

“I don’t give a shit, Garcia!” the woman snarls at the tech analyst as she somehow manages to gain some sort of strength to hop forward slightly on her one leg despite both women’s vice grip hold on her.

Both women seem to register the nurse grumbling something to herself and pulling something from her pocket, before they hear a slight pop register through the room and it all seems to happen suddenly.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” is the last thing that Emily Prentiss hears from either woman as the room once again goes dark.


	21. and rising together as the time needs

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” the blonde woman was practically shouting. She had a bandage placed over her right ear as the damage was far more extensive now. “I am fine!”

The young genius who was set next to her simply shakes his head and speaks in an even tone. JJ only knows this cause she sees his lips moving and the look in his eye. He simply says, “No, you aren’t or you could hear what I’m saying right now.”

Jennifer Jareau hadn’t caught any of that but it didn’t matter one way or another to her. She had been poked and prodded and scanned and seen by a myriad of doctors all night and now she was sick of it. She needed to see her wife, she just wanted this nightmare of a situation to be over with and she wanted to go home.

“Spence, I don’t know what you said but I don’t really care,” JJ says with a shake of her head. “I need to go see Emily, I told her I would be back.”

She didn’t realize that it was already nearing midnight now but she knew that the hours were passing slowly as she had ever felt them. She would stand up and walk out if not for the fact that she got dizzy in every attempt that she made to do so. The blonde had never been more frustrated in her life and it made her all the more sympathetic towards the brunette who was lying helpless a few floors up from her. She understood Emily’s distaste for hospitals now. This is absolutely hellish.

That’s when the bespectacled blonde enters the room of the ER and looks with a pained expression on her face. JJ knew she was probably a sight between the bandages on her ear and forehead now. She groans, “Garcia, thank god, maybe you can talk some sense into these yahoos who are keeping me here against my will!”

Penelope slightly winces at the volume and harshness of which the woman was speaking without even realizing it. She turns to Reid and gestures towards the blonde in the bed, “So I see that this situation hasn’t changed since I last checked in.”

“Alright, I get it, I can’t hear very well right now but you two could at least speak up,” JJ says in irritation, she really can’t remember another time where she was more frustrated than right now. “How is Em doing, Garcia? What did you tell her?”

The tech analyst is stumbling over her words as she struggles to not upset the younger blonde any further but she knows that that probably wasn’t quite possible. And that’s when Derek enters the small cubicle of a room where they were holding their teammate.

“Alright, they just sedated Emily again so she should be out for the night,” Morgan relays, the fact that he had entered on the side of JJ’s good ear and that he was speaking to all three tenants of the room which meant that he was speaking louder, this means that the blonde agent is able to decipher most of what he had just said. “I left Tara with her for now.”

“I’m sorry but did you just say they had to sedate my wife?” JJ asks with vehemence before she turns with an accusatory stare at Garcia who now was staring wide-eyed and terrified at the dark man in the room. All the while Reid stood with his hands in his pockets, bouncing from his heels to the balls of his feet in anxiety. “Why the hell would they need to sedate my wife, Garcia?”

“Uh, uh, well, you see…” the blonde with glasses starts to explain but with difficulty. “I was with Em when we found out about the bomber coming to the station and I might have freaked out slightly when Morgan told me and spilled to Emily what happened and that they were bringing you to the hospital.”

JJ had managed to gather most of Garcia’s explanation as her eyes goes wide while her breathing picks up from the heat of anger that she felt building inside of herself. “You told her?! Are you kidding me right now, Pen?!”

“Listen, Jayje, I couldn’t hide it from her, she’s a profiler,” the tech analyst defends at a volume that JJ could decipher. “She knew immediately that something had happened and then she freaked out before I could even explain and she stood up to try and-”

“Stood up?!” the blonde agent’s eyes go impossibly wider, her voice impossibly louder. “You mean my wife who just had her leg amputated, stood up and tried to walk all because I was slightly injured?”

“Slightly injured?” Morgan inquires with a quirk of his eyebrows, his hands on his hips. “JJ, you’re practically yelling right now.”

“I am yelling cause I am pissed off, Morgan!” the younger woman shoots back with anger.

Garcia sighs and tries to calm everyone in the room down but mainly the woman in the bed, “She is fine, JJ, they just had to change her dressings again after they sedated her as some blood had escaped her wound, okay? They’re keeping her sedated until you’re released in the morning.”

JJ’s hands go over her eyes as she sighs in intense frustration. How had this all gotten out of hand? She knew it was a mistake to go to that police station but she can’t find it in herself to regret it at all. She would never admit it but being able to be the one to take down Ballentine was probably the best therapy that she could have received in this situation.

“It’s over, Jennifer,” Reid says as he grabs ahold of his friend’s hand, taking it away from her face so that she would look at him. “It’s over now and you and Emily can finally start piecing back together your lives and it’s going to be okay.”

The blonde agent shakes her head, not entirely convinced of this, it might seem okay to the team but they were not the ones who will be piecing it all back together. They didn’t even know all the pieces to the very broken puzzle and JJ was certain that she had lost a few along the way herself. “Will and the kids are supposed to be coming here in the morning, how the hell am I supposed to explain this when I’m in a hospital bed too?”

“Oh, don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours, Jareau,” Garcia speaks up again. “Reid and I will handle those little blonde and brunette darlings of yours and as for Will… well, maybe someone will rob another bank or something.”

JJ just snorts a little in laughter, shaking her head at the analyst’s resolve but she felt grateful. Grateful to have all these amazing people in her life, her family that she knows will do anything to help protect her, her wife and their kids, even if that meant trying to keep the peace and sanity in their chaos.

“Thanks, guys,” the blonde agent offers a little more calmly now. “I’m sorry for getting so worked up.”

“Hey, that’s what family is for,” Morgan says with a smirk and a shrug. “We love you at your best and tolerate you at your worst.”

Garcia punches the dark agent’s bicep at his words but JJ just smiles and Reid squeezes her hand again with a reassuring nod of his head. That’s how Jennifer Jareau knew that she was not alone in this fight.


	22. despite the wincing sound of grinding teeth

Penelope Garcia awoke to the feeling of Spencer Reid’s elbow shoving into her arm slightly as she was passed out in the ICU waiting room. She swore if this wasn’t important that she would strangle the young genius herself. She knew that they would be releasing JJ soon and that the prognosis wasn’t great. She was completely barred from working as the doctor hadn’t been too happy when he found out what situation had led the blonde back into his emergency ward. It seemed now that the hope of the amount of the hearing to return to their friend’s ear was down from eighty-five percent when the bomb went off Friday down to a mere sixty after the previous night’s events.

When she turns her attention to Reid, she sees him nodding his head towards the entrance of the ward where she saw the short, bearded man entering with JJ and Emily’s stunning little girl in his arms and hand attached to his youngest son while his eldest brought up the rear. She follows the genius as his lanky limbs stand to greet them.

“Hey, Pen, Spencer, is JJ in with Em?” Will asked in his southern drawl. “I got a few anxious kiddos who can’t wait to see their mommas.”

“Hey, Henry, Michael,” Reid says as he waves to the two boys and nods at the little girl. “Why don’t you guys come with me while Aunt Pen talks to your dad?”

Henry just rolls his eyes impatiently and shrugs, “Why does everyone need to talk all the time? When can we see moms?”

“In just a little bit, bud, I promise,” Reid says as he takes Michael’s hand and loops his arm around his godson’s shoulder. “But I saw some pretty awesome Star Wars stuff in the gift shop, why don’t you guys come with me and I can show you?”

Michael seems excited as he nods his head emphatically as the older blonde boy simply sighs, feeling that it wasn’t exactly an optional choice, “Fine.”

As Spencer walks away with the two boys, he sends a nod towards the blonde analyst and Will seems confused as he shifts the weight of the little girl in his arms, “What’s going on, Penelope?”

“Uh, well, something happened last night,” the tech analyst relays with nervousness, she takes the little girl from the man’s arms quickly. She was always so excited to see how the little girl had grown a slight bit more every day. “Well, hello, gorgeous, how is my favorite brunette baby doing?”

“You can’t just say that something happened, Garcia, and not tell me,” the southern man says a little impatiently.

“Alright, look, JJ had to go to the station last night to work and the unsub showed up there,” she sees the man about to protest before she cuts him off. “She is fine, Will, but there was another explosion, no one was killed and they got the guy but her hearing has gotten worse, she’s down in the ER now and they’re about to release her.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Garcia?” Will exclaims a little heatedly as Garcia instinctively covers Roz’s ears at the man’s use of language. “Why is it that with every turn you guys have made on this case that it seems to be JJ is the one getting hurt?”

“Uh, pardon me, William but JJ was just doing her job as was requested of her,” Penelope says seriously as she readjusts her glasses on her face. “And I don’t like the insinuation that we intentionally tried to get JJ hurt in anyway, she is our friend and our coworker and her and Em’s wellbeing means more than anything to all of us and not just you, you know?”

“Yeah, it sure as hell seems like it,” Will quips angrily and looks and points down the hallway. “Is Emily awake?”

The man inquires but doesn’t wait for an answer as Garcia starts to protests, “Will, I don’t think it’s a good idea if you go in-”

But the man is gone, storming his way off towards the older agent’s room that he had been told the number of the day before. He arrives quickly, he sees Emily awake in the room and talking to Morgan and tightens his jaw before he makes his way through the sliding glass door.

“How the hell could you just let her go back to work when she was injured like that?” Will inquires shortly of the brunette woman. Not even bothering with greetings at this point. Not really even taking in the state of the older woman who had tears lining her irises. He doesn’t even notice in his anger her own wounds and injury which is starkly set in the morning light of the room.

“Will?” is all the woman can manage at that moment, as Morgan stands from beside her in a slightly defensive posture.

“What the hell, man?” Derek asks as his eyebrows furrow in slight irritation himself.

The bearded man just shakes his head, irate, “You knew she was injured and hadn’t been cleared for work but you still let her go to that police station to what? Get blown up all over again? No, what the hell is wrong you, Emily?”

“Will, I didn’t-” the brunette starts to speak and she feels the man’s pain at the moment. She can’t believe she hadn’t protested a little more when all she had was a bad feeling about this case. She didn’t even know all that had happened just that JJ was injured again.

“No, I’m tired of this, Emily,” the southern man says as he cuts her off. “Why is it that ever since you came back to the unit that everything in JJ’s life has fallen apart?”

“That’s not fair, Will,” Derek speaks up again, holding out a hand towards the man as he rounds the bed and approaches JJ’s ex-husband. “I think you need to take a step back and evaluate yourself, man. Just look at her.”

Morgan whispers his last sentence as he tilts his head back towards the brunette who had been stunned silent and that’s when Will finally allows himself to take in the severity of the situation. He sees the remainder of the woman’s leg as his eyes fall now and he’s forced to look away. But his anger was still all the more palpable.

“Will, what is going on?” the voice of the blonde woman seems to shake the tension of the room as they all turn and see her standing at the entrance of the glass door holding her infant daughter in her arms. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

“JJ,” Emily seems to find her own voice again, weak but there and the sight of the blonde woman with bandages lacing the side of her face is stirring a conflicting emotion inside of her as she also sees her standing with their infant daughter who has no idea what was happening at the moment. Emily’s not even sure if she did entirely herself.

“You’re okay?” the southern man asks with surprise as he feels Morgan’s hand fall on his shoulder. Will looks back at the taller dark man who has a stern look on his face.

Derek just nods and leads him towards the door, passing JJ and Roz on the way out, “Let’s take a walk.”

JJ’s eyes meet Morgan’s with a grateful glance and he nods again as he leads Will away from the room and the two women who he loved like his own sisters. He was happy to deal with situation if only it gave the blonde and the brunette any kind of reprieve. He knew they needed that right now more than ever.

As JJ is watching the two men walk away, she feels her daughter jerk slightly away from her and more towards the room as the brunette baby exclaims, “Ma!”

The words shock both women silent as JJ’s head whips around and watches as her daughter is desperately reaching out for the brunette in the hospital bed, “What did you just say, Roz?”

“Ma!” the baby repeats her call for her other mother, as her hands are opening and closing towards the older agent now.

“She’s never said that before,” Emily says as she looks into the blue eyes of her wife. But the blonde shakes her head in frustration with the distance and not being able to hear exactly what her wife said as she stepped closer now and hands her overtly excited daughter into Emily’s arms. She knows by the wonder and joy that she sees now on her wife’s face that she didn’t have to.

As she watches the brunette interact with their daughter who was practically her miniature spitting image, she can’t help the smile that laces her face. She watches the older woman land a kiss on Roz’s head before her brown irises look back up at her with a question laced deep within them.

“What is going on?” Emily asks a little louder this time because honestly she didn’t remember much of anything from the night prior with the sedative they had given her and with JJ’s ear bandaged up, she figured she’d better speak up. “Morgan was starting to explain when Will walked in.”

“The unsub threw a homemade grenade through the window of the precinct and it went off but no one was hurt,” JJ says before she relents with a slight tilt of her head. “Unless losing hearing in my right ear isn’t considered hurt.”

“Oh my god, I never should’ve let you go back there last night,” Emily says, closing her eyes and sighing but JJ can already see the regret lacing her expression.

“Don’t, can we just not?” JJ asks seriously as she places her hand on her wife’s arm and kneels beside the bed now. “We can’t just keep going around in a loop of regret and guilt like we had anything to do with getting the other hurt, we can’t change what’s happened…”

“We can only change what happens in the future?” Emily completes her wife’s sentence for her with a raise of her eyebrow. And JJ’s brows furrow as she confusingly nods her head. “I got that spiel from Garcia yesterday but you are both right.”

JJ smiles at her wife’s resolution and nods her head, “Good, now let’s just be happy that we have each other and this beautiful little girl and those boys of ours.”

“And Will?” Emily says with a groan and a roll of her eyes as JJ just shakes her head.

“We’ll deal with that later,” JJ offers quietly, hoping it was enough. Hoping her wife would relent just enough for them to feel the joy in this moment. “It doesn't even matter right now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Emily says with a nod of her head. She leans forward and finds the lips of her wife before they both feel their daughter’s tiny hands meeting their cheeks and then her little lips as they meet in-between their joined kiss to share her own with them. They both pull away with a laugh. Even JJ's eyes were starting to fill with tears.

“Ma!” the little girl exclaims with joy as she simply clasp her hands together in her favorite motion. And right now, despite everything, life felt like it would be okay.


	23. yet the heart and the soul keeps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i literally cried writing this chapter, y'all and i'm a grown ass adult and this is fanfic. this is basically as fluffy as i get and figured it was an appropriate ending.

It was a short while later and JJ had managed to take the seat next to her wife. She was sitting much closer now however as she helps support her daughter as the little girl sat upon Emily’s abdomen and even though the older woman had insisted she was fine, JJ was still set there not wanting any of the little girl’s sudden movements to hurt her brunette mother.

That’s when the glass of the sliding door rang out with a knock and drew their attention away, that’s where Reid and Garcia stood waving. Michael was holding Garcia’s hand while Henry was nervously pressed against the front of Reid who had a supporting hand on his shoulder.

“Hi, can we come in?” Reid asks with a small smile on his face. Smiles light up both of the mothers’ faces as they see their two little boys and as soon as Michael had realized where they were and who was in the room he had shot off like a canon for the bed.

“Momma!” the youngest boy exclaims as he ran and thank god for Jennifer Jareau’s years of quick thinking on her feet as both a mother and an FBI agent as she quickly rounded the bed, knowing exactly where her son was headed. She intercepts him just short of leaping upon the bed and therefore his stepmother’s injured leg.

“Whoa there, bud,” she whispers a little breathlessly. “Slow your role, partner, I know you’re excited but remember what we talked about yesterday with momma’s leg?”

The blonde boy just nods his head bashfully before looking wide-eyed back up at his blue-eyed mother who just wipes the hair from his eyes as he protests, “But Roz gets to be up there!”

“I know, honey, but Roz is smaller, okay?” JJ says as she looks at her son with sympathetic eyes. Emily watches this happen and Garcia seems to instinctively know what the brunette needs as she takes the little girl from the older woman’s arms with ease. “I’m gonna let momma hold you, okay but you have to promise me to be slow and gentle, okay?”

“I promise, mommy,” he says with a nod of his head, holding out his pinky finger for JJ took take which she does as she kisses him on the head and makes her way over to her wife.

“Come here, little guy,” Emily says softly as she takes the younger boy from JJ who is watching carefully for any sign of hurt or struggle from her wife. She only sees a smile as the older woman lays a kiss on the boy’s forehead. “You know, I missed you, bud.”

“I missed you too, momma,” Michael says as he looks into her brown eyes. “Does your booboo hurt?”

Emily laughs slightly at the young boys’ innocent question and just nods, “Yeah, my booboo hurts pretty bad but you know what? It hasn’t hurt a bit since you showed up.”

As JJ turns her attention away from the sight of her wife and youngest son, she looks over by the door where Reid is still holding a supportive hand on Henry’s shoulder. She sees where her bespectacled son’s eyes have fallen now, she sees the worry and the anxiety laced there again and she sighs. She walks over to the boy, kneeling down to his level and trying to meet his eyes and when she finally does she offers the smallest of smirks, her eyes full of sympathy and then she engulfs her first born into her arms in a hug. As they pull away, JJ seems to be asking a question only with her irises and Henry seems to understand this, as he nods in response.

JJ stands and starts to walk over with her son but she stops as she feels him hesitate, she looks down at him worriedly. The older woman had been slightly aware of the interaction between JJ and Henry as she conversed with Michael but now seeing them stop on their way over, she turns to them. She smiles at the eldest blonde boy.

“I’m not gonna pull my lightsaber and turn on you like Anakin did to Obi-Wan, you know?” Emily quips from the bed with a small smile, and Henry just rolls his eyes slightly. “It’s just me, bud.”

“I know that, Emily,” the boy says looking down as he picks at his fingernails and JJ seems all the more concerned now with his use of the woman’s first name, she thought they were past that point now. Emily just looks patient as she always did with the boys. “It’s just- I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

“Come a little closer and I’ll tell you a secret?” Emily offers as she nods her head, Michael seems intrigued by this offer and leans in closer. Henry just shrugs his shoulders and makes his way over to the woman’s bedside. JJ stands back and gives them some room, just watching. “You know what? I don’t like being hurt much either but you know what I like even less?”

Henry just listens astutely as his stepmom whispered to him and his little brother and he steps a little closer as he anticipates her answer.

“I hate it even more when your mommy’s hurt,” the brunette says lowly to the two boys who both nod their head vehemently in agreement. “So will you two do me a huge favor?”

She watches patiently again as both boys look at each other and nod.

She smirks as she whispers again, “Will you walk over there for me and give mommy the biggest hug that either of you have ever given in your whole entire lives?”

The two boys smile at each other and then look at their blonde mother who’s eyebrows are laced with concern as she certainly wasn’t able to make out the secret conversation between her sons and wife. They nod and Henry runs while Michael leaps off the bed and JJ nearly panics at the sudden movement as Emily laughs as hard as she had since all this had happened and the two boys nearly take the blonde to the floor with the force of their hug.

Garcia laughs as well and Reid smiles, Roz suddenly claps her hands together again and points at the scene, shouting, “Ma!”

“I think someone wants in on the action,” offers the tech analyst says as she kneels, setting the brunette baby on the floor as she was able to stand on her own with a little help. They were only few steps away from the boys and JJ. And the little girl manages to lift her right foot and set it down and do the same with her left before she falls on the dogpile that was ensuing with her mother and brothers.

“Oh my god, did she just walk?” Emily says as the smile is wiped off her face as shock takes its place.

“She did!” JJ says as she is relentlessly smiling and laughing as the weight of her kids was starting to suffocate her a little but she didn’t mind so much. “Alright, kiddos, let me up!”

As the laughter and smiles and the excitement of the kids settled down in the room, JJ stood and scooped up her little girl in her arms and peppering kisses all over her face, “Oh my god, I’m so proud of you, baby girl!”

“Well, one of these days I’ll catch up with you there, Roz,” Emily quipped sarcastically as JJ just eyed her with a warning.

“Don’t worry, momma,” Henry says, still sporting a big smirk. “We’re gonna get you a cool new leg but not like Darth Vader because FBI agents are much cooler than Jedi, right, Reid?”

Reid just smiles and tosses a thumbs-up towards the boy. He had simply been witnessing the scene with a joy in his heart. How this little family of five had seemed to melt his heart so thoroughly he wasn’t sure but he knows that right about now that Garcia is feeling the same way as he looked over and saw the woman with tears in her eyes, a hand over her mouth and another over her heart. He walks over and just pulls her into his side by the arm.

“And by the way, Prentiss,” JJ says while lifting an eyebrow after she had thoroughly caught her breath. “I’m so getting you back for that.”

“Oh really?” Emily quips with an intentionally suspicious smirk on her face. “I look forward to that day, Jareau.”

“How are you gonna get her back, mommy?” Michael asks with confusion as his brows furrowed and a finger went to his chin.

JJ just laughs and shakes her head a little, “Don’t you worry, buddy, mommy has her ways.”

“You guys are gross,” Henry says, not knowing entirely what his blonde mom meant but he knew enough that they were flirting again and it always made him sick when they flirted. He was happy to see the smiles gracing both of his mothers’ faces again though. It had seemed like a lot longer than just this weekend that he had seen smiles gracing both of their lips while they were together. 

He wonders if it’s possible that bad things can actually end up being good things? Is it actually possible that a bomb had brought his family back together? He didn’t know but he shrugs and lets himself be happy for it either way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fin.
> 
> okay, this is kind of emotional for me since i started writing this fic in december because i loved these ladies and i noticed the jj and emily fandom was more than a little dead. but it seems ever since it has been thriving. so i am very grateful for all the friends that i have made along the way in the crazy journey into this fandom. thank you so much for all the comments, kudos and hits! i hope you have enjoyed this fic as much as i enjoyed writing it (while it lasted anyway)!
> 
> seriously, thank all of you so much for sticking with me on this through the thick and thin. all of your support has meant the world to me! you guys are amazing! thank you!


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